RUMFORD – Two hundred votes were erroneously excluded from last week’s annual town meeting tally sheet for an article seeking funding for the River Valley Growth Council.

Town Clerk Jane Giasson said for Article 34, the vote tally should have been written as 462 for the Finance Committee recommendation of $6,200 and not 262. That means the council will get $6,200 instead of nothing.

Giasson said it was a clerical error.

“It’s no big deal,” she said Tuesday.

It was, however, a big deal to the growth council, because the economic development organization’s survival is dependent on receiving funding from its member towns and other sources.

“The growth council was both very pleased and relieved,” Town Manager Carlo Puiia said Tuesday after contacting council members.

Had the error not been discovered, the council wouldn’t have received any funding from Rumford.

The initial written tally was 370 to give no money, 300 to support the selectmen’s recommendation of $7,200, and 262 to support the Finance Committee’s recommendation of $6,200.

The council’s initial request was for $16,000.

Giasson said the only other clerical error involved Article 25, which sought funding for the Greater Rumford Senior Citizens. The initial tally was 470 for the selectmen’s recommendation of $5,760; 462 for the committee recommendation of $6,400; and 162 to give no money.

But the correct tally for the committee’s recommendation was 552 votes, which means the agency gets $6,400.

Giasson said the errors were discovered after she went over the voting machine and tape tallies for each article. She insisted the two mistakes were the only errors on the 56-article warrant.

Last week’s secret balloting also revealed problems with the process, specifically that a minority vote could override the will of the people, Puiia said.

“We learned something about our process,” he said Tuesday in the town office. “It gave us insight about a problem that a minority vote could decide funding issues.”

On money matters, voters had the option of voting for either the selectmen or Finance Committee recommendations, or to provide no funding.

It didn’t matter if the will of the people was to fund something if the zero-funding votes totaled more than that of either of the two recommendations.

For example, prior to the discovery that someone wrote the wrong vote tally on the Growth Council funding request, 562 people collectively voted to give the growth council money, whereas 370 voted against doing so.

The annual town meeting balloting on June 9 was Rumford’s third experience on voting by secret ballot.

“This was the first time that this type of situation happened,” Puiia said.

He said selectmen will discuss a possible solution at their next board meeting Thursday, June 18.