A recount of the Wiscasset planning budget has confirmed its passage, again with one vote making the difference. The recount was performed due to a citizens petition filed with Wiscasset Town Clerk Christine Wolfe Sept. 17.
The original count following the vote Sept. 10 was 353 in favor and 352 opposed.
The recount Wednesday morning determined the count to be 355-354.
According to Wolfe, one ballot remained in question. After consulting 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-yes and 354-no.
That means two ballots which were unreadable by the machine were able to be determined during the manual recount. Wolfe said the machine may not be able to read a ballot due to voter error.
“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,” Wolfe said. “Wiscasset’s election clerks do a phenomenal job and should be very proud of the integrity of our elections.”
The town budget committee strongly opposed the planning budget prior to the vote as well as the assessing/human resource budget, two capital improvement articles, the purchase of a public works truck and a generator for the town office, all of which failed with the exception of the planning budget, which narrowly passed by one vote.
