LIVERMORE FALLS – Melanie Rounds, a Campground Road resident, received 19 write-in votes to fill a vacant selectmen’s seat Tuesday.

She will serve seven months in that post.

Rounds was among 53 write-in candidates, Town Clerk Kristal Flagg said.

Voters received a blank ballot because no one officially turned in papers to fill the seat vacated by Julie Deschesne in September.

Rounds returned nomination papers to the town office by the filing deadline but hadn’t signed them as required, before she had to leave the state for a family emergency.

She had previously said she was interested in being a write-in candidate.

Twenty-two absentee ballots were counted among the 428 votes cast for the selectmen’s race and the statewide questions, Flagg said.

There are about 2,300 registered voters in Livermore Falls.

Other top write-in candidates were Denise Rodzen with 11 votes, Clayton Putnam with eight, Bernal Lake with seven, Kristal Flagg and Clark Souther each receiving six and Russell Flagg, Kristal’s husband, receiving five.

The remainder had two or fewer votes.

If Rounds changes her mind and doesn’t want the seat, the seat is considered open, and the issue will go back to selectmen.