BUCKFIELD – SAD 39 directors candidate Jason Rowe doesn’t want your vote. In fact he won’t even be voting for himself in next Tuesday’s annual town election.

“I will be voting against myself,” Rowe said Tuesday.

It’s not that the candidate didn’t want to be Buckfield’s next representative on the board, he just doesn’t want his wife to lose her job.

The problem started when he submitted nomination papers as one of three candidates for two seats, just as his wife, Diana, was hired as an education technician at Buckfield Elementary School.

“It’s a conflict of interest,” he explained of the two positions. Superintendent Rick Colpitts also informed his wife of the conflict, Rowe said.

“It’s a SAD 39 rule,” confirmed Town Clerk Cindy Dunn.

While Rowe feared his election would necessitate a special town election that would cost the town, Dunn said Tuesday that the law would allow selectmen to fill the vacancy until the next regularly scheduled annual town election. At that time, the position would be on the ballot for the remaining two years.

If a special election had to be held, Dunn said it would have cost the town about $150 to open the polls for the approximately 1,400 registered voters from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the municipal building, where Tuesday’s election will be held, and go through the election process.

There are three candidates for the two, three-year terms on the school board. Besides Rowe, incumbent Jerry Wiley and Malda R. Demers-Dobson are seeking election.

Floyd Richardson Jr. is not seeking re-election to the board. He is one of two candidates, including Roger Bennett, seeking the three-year term on the Board of Selectmen.

Rowe has had some other bad luck in trying to serve his community in the past few years.

In 2005, he lost a bid for the Hartford Board of Selectmen by three votes in a problem-plagued election when some voters reported they did not see a candidate’s name on the ballots.

In an attempt to fix the problem, an election warden opened the ballot box and removed 13 ballots already cast.

Although the voters were requested to come back and recast their votes, not everyone returned. In the end, Rowe lost that election 96-93.

He also lost a previous bid to the SAD 17 board by six votes.

Rowe said he had hoped to represent the board as what he believes to be the only board member with school-age children.