MECHANIC FALLS – It took just 15 minutes to count ballots Monday night after the lowest voter turnout on record.
Only 59 of Mechanic Falls’ 2,069 registered voters cast ballots, according to Town Clerk Shirley Marquis. There were no contested races.
The 2.85 percent turnout is a stark contrast to the 82 percent that cast ballots in the presidential election in November. The highest level of participation in a local election in the past decade was 16 percent for an education issue in 2000, said Marquis, who began compiling statistics on the town’s elections in 1996. Prior to Monday’s election, the town’s lowest turnout for municipal balloting was 4 percent in 1997 and 2000.
“Local elections really don’t attract many people unless there is a race,” Marquis said.
Incumbent Town Council member Roger Guptill received 38 votes, winning a second three-year term. Former council member and current School Committee member Daniel Blanchard garnered 47 votes. Blanchard will replace Oliver Emery, who could not run again due to a term limit provision in the town charter that prevents council and School Committee members from running for more than three consecutive three-year terms.
“Danny Blanchard got termed out three years ago (from his council seat),” Marquis said.
Guptill was also re-elected to a fourth term as a sanitary district trustee with 54 votes. That board is separate from the town government and is not subject to term limits
Jacques Wiseman won election to the School Committee with 55 votes. He will replace Blanchard.
The annual town meeting will begin at 6 p.m. tonight in the Elm Street School gymnasium. The town charter requires that the meeting recess at 10 p.m., and reconvene Wednesday night if it is not completed by 10 p.m.
Marquis said the 2004 meeting took three and a half hours. In 2003, it took two hours. The last town meeting that took two nights to complete was in 2002.
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