Rep. Les Fossel, R-Alna, will probably request a recount in the race for the District 20 seat in the Maine Senate, he said Nov. 12.
The two-term legislator said he would decide by the legal deadline, the close of business Wednesday, Nov. 14.
Unofficial results from the Department of the Secretary of State show Fossel losing by 134 votes of 21,626 cast, a margin of 0.62 percent, to incumbent Sen. Chris Johnson, D-Somerville.
Maine law allows a candidate to request a recount when the margin separating the candidates totals less than 2 percent of all votes. Bigger margins require the losing candidate to make a cash deposit, subject to forfeit if the recount does not change the results.
Fossel said the introduction of electronic vote-counting machines in several Lincoln County towns would factor into his decision, as the first-time use of the machines could result in errors, human or machine.
The ballots that accompany the machines require voters to fill in a small oval instead of checking or placing an “X” in a box.
Fossel said available results show 1287 blanks, or ballots where a voter did not select either Fossel or Johnson.
If voters did not completely fill in the ovals, the machines might not have read some of those ballots, Fossel said. He said Maine law requires the counting of any ballot that indicates a clear preference for a candidate.
Megan Sanborn, a spokeswoman for the Department of the Secretary of State, said the machines automatically notify any voter who does not select a candidate in one or more races. The voter then has the choice to submit the ballot anyway, if he or she does not wish to vote in a certain race, or request a new ballot if he or she made a mistake.
District 20 includes all of Lincoln County except Dresden, plus the Kennebec County town of Windsor and the Knox County towns of Friendship and Washington.
A recount is also possible in the District 51 House race, where unofficial results show Mick Devin, D-Newcastle, with 93 more votes than Buzz Pinkham, R-Damariscotta, a margin of 1.65 percent of the 5629 votes cast.
Pinkham said Nov. 13 he does not know whether he will request a recount. He, too, expressed some concern about the new machines.
“Damariscotta definitely had a problem with theirs,” he said. “Maybe it would be good to have a recount and prove to everybody that they do work just fine.”
District 51 includes Bristol, Damariscotta, Edgecomb, Monhegan Plantation, Newcastle and South Bristol.
The Lincoln County News will update this story online as more information becomes available.