WISCASSET — Misty Parker will continue to serve as the town’s planner.
Following today’s recount of the Sept. 10 vote on the planning department budget, the $75,968 budget passed again — by the original single vote. The recount vote is 355-353, with one ballot in question, Town Clerk Christine Wolfe reported Wednesday.
Bob Blagden and Bill Barnes, both memers of the Budget Committee, requested the recount. Both said they were not representing the committee, which opposed the budget.
Wolfe said that, following consultation with legal counsel at both the Maine Municipal Association and Bernstein Shur, the one ballot in question was counted as a negative vote bringing the recount final tally to 355-354. That means that two ballots that were previously unreadable by the machine were able to be determined on the manual recount, Wolfe said.
“This happens when people do not follow the directions correctly and use pencil lightly filled in or make just an X instead of filling in the oval as instructed,” Wolfe said. “I do not believe that the integrity of using a tabulator can be called into question as it is the lack of direction-following that most likely caused two ballots to not be tabulated by the Accuvote machine. Wiscasset’s election clerks do a phenomenal job and should be very proud of the integrity of our elections.”