Haggerty, Ketcham,elected to MCC; Write-in candidate Stein holds tenuous lead

CORRECTION: We called this too quickly. See the correction at the bottom of this story.

Dan Haggerty and Lisa Ketcham, and Laura Stein have been elected to the Midcoast Community Council, as of 11pm, with 9 of 9 precincts reporting.

Stein’s slender margin of victory (six votes) was nonetheless a significant achievement. She was running as a write-in candidate. Stein tied fourth-place finisher Leonard W. Stone II in mail-in votes, with 302 votes. But she gathered eight more votes than Stone on election day.

With Stein’s narrow margin of victory, a recount is likely.

CORRECTION: Dennis Paull emailed us a more accurate interpretation of last night’s results:

The vote counting isn’t done yet. Late arriving absentee ballots (via the mail or at the polls) and paper ballots cast at the polls as well as the provisional ballots remain to be counted. This will probably be done today through next Monday.

Then there will be a 1% manual tally late next week most likely followed by the ‘official’ count certified within the next 3 or 4 weeks. Only after that will there be a recount if Stone wants to pay for it, or by Laura if the lead changes and she wants to pay for it. Since the turnout was low, there are not a lot of ballots to count.