In the 1901 city election, every office was contested by one Democrat and one Republican.  In the weeks leading up to the election, the Republican newspaper Washington News did its best extolling for their candidates on the ticket, and the Democrat paper, Washington Post, did the same.

The first ward alderman race featured Democrat William H. Long against Republican George Heyl. Long had spent many years in Washington as a fabricator of wagons, fences, swings, etc. His shop was at the current site of Threads, Hope, & Love.

Heyl was a recent newcomer to Washington, and his horse breeding empire was starting to take shape.  His star was on the rise.

The election took place in April, and after 365 votes were cast, the results were tallied and reported.  Republican victories filled the top of the ballot, yet two of three wins in the alderman races were for Democrats.  The closest of these three races was Ward 1, where William H. Long defeated George Heyl by one vote, 54 to 53.

The city council gathered to canvass and declare the election results official the Saturday after the election.  During this process, they discovered that one of the clerks had tallied the 1st ward race as 54-53 for Long, while the other had scored it as a 53-53 tie.  Deciding they could not take one clerk's results over another at face value, they opened the locked ballot box and counted the ballots.

Inspection of the ballots showed that 109 votes had been cast.  Two of the votes showed no vote for Alderman, while a single vote had voted for both Long AND Heyl.  With those three ballots declared invalid, they had 106 countable votes, and the final tally, recounted three times, was a 53-53 tie.

By mutual agreement of all parties, it was determined to decide the race by coin flip.  Heyl was declared the winner.

The Democrat-leaning Washington Post asserted that the two clerks swore their books agreed after their initial tally, with Long winning by one vote. The Republican Washington News said this was not true, while both papers spun the situation in favor of their party.

In May, a deputy sheriff arrived in Washington to serve subpoenas to Mayor Price, City Attorney Waltmire, City Clerk Myers, and Aldermen Berney, Kern, Holland, and Nesmith to appear before the Tazewell County grand jury in a case titled "State of Illinois vs. H.L. Price et al. " regarding the election. Someone had contacted the state regarding illegal activity in Washington's elections.

The case was heard and eventually thrown out, with all 24 grand jurors failing to indict the Mayor and council members.

Long returned and was elected as a Democratic alderman in the 1903 election by four votes (56-52) over Daniel Minch.