Mail ballots cement GOP power in Smithfield

SMITHFIELD — Republicans cemented their new hold on the Town Council and School Committee yesterday when the state Board of Elections announced the results of the mail ballot count.

The Republicans maintained a grip of 3 to 2 on both panels, the tentative position announced on Wednesday before the mail ballots were processed. Townspeople had to wait an extra day to learn who would lead their government because of a printed glitch on some ballots. The defective ballots contained the name of a Democratic candidate for Town Council who withdrew several weeks ago. Officials of the elections board managed to sort out the misprinted ballots.

Incumbents who retained their council seats are Stephen R. Archambault, a Democrat and current council president, S. Jean Cerroni, Democrat, Michael J. Flynn, Republican, and Ronald F. Manni, Republican. They will be joined by Maxine A. Cavanagh, a Republican and former council member. Cavanagh wound up with 50 votes more than Councilman Bernard A. Hawkins, a Democrat and council vice president, who failed to make the cut.

Two seats were available on the five-member School Committee. One of them went to Alberto J. LaGreca Jr., a Republican former president of the Town Council. Joan J. LaFauci, a Democrat, held on to her post, but school panel member Lauraine A. Ouellette, a Democrat, lost, along with candidate Sean J. Clough, a Republican.

—Thomas J. Morgan

Write-in candidates win Chariho seats

Voting is usually a multiple-choice experience, but several spots on Richmond ballots were a fill-in-the-blank test, and, in Charlestown, a former Town Council president who wasn’t running for anything this year was surprised to learn she had won a seat on the Chariho School Committee.

Deborah A. Carney, who served from 2002 to 2006 on the Charlestown council, some as president, got unofficial word yesterday that about 13 voters wrote her name in on the ballot for Charlestown committee member on the Chariho School Committee.

She apparently won the seat being vacated by Giancarlo Cicchetti, who won by write-in vote four years ago.

“I did not seek the office,” Carney said yesterday. “Imagine my surprise.”

It didn’t come as a complete surprise.

“A couple of people approached me and said, ‘I’ve been told to vote for you.’ ” She couldn’t figure who was behind it, she said, adding that she had urged people to write in Cicchetti’s name for another term.

Whether she will serve is another question. “I will definitely need to discuss it with my family,” she said yesterday, explaining that she left public service in 2006 because she missed time with her husband and son, who is now 14.

Richmond had two Chariho School Committee seats to fill and only one candidate, William G. Day, a Republican who has served since 1995, most recently as chairman. He was reelected with 2,618 votes, according to unofficial results reported yesterday by the state Board of Elections after mail ballots were added to Tuesday night’s machine totals.

Michelle Cole, a mother of three and a Chariho graduate, planned to run next year, she said, but when she saw that one of Richmond’s seats was going uncontested, she launched a write-in campaign.

Apparently 94 voters closed the arrow correctly and wrote in Cole’s name. She won.

—Donita Naylor

Pawtucket School Committee winner on hold

PAWTUCKET — The winner of the write-in campaign for School Committee will not be known until next week because the Board of Canvassers will not be able to get access to some of the write-in ballots, according to Registrar Kenneth R. McGill.

Poll workers mistakenly placed some of the write-in ballots with regular voting ballots in sealed containers on election night and the state Board of Elections has asked that the containers remain sealed because there will likely be a recount in the District 5 City Council race. Jean Philippe Barros has apparently defeated longtime Councilwoman Mary E. Bray by a vote of 1,468 to 1,404. McGill said Bray has until Wednesday to ask for a recount.

Bray said that she would ask for a recount today.

The School Committee seemed like a foregone conclusion for all seven, unopposed Democratic candidates until Matthew F. Gunnip, a caseworker for the state Department of Children, Youth and Families, dropped out when he discovered that the Hatch Act prohibits him from running for public office in a partisan election because his agency receives federal money. His withdrawal spurred a write-in campaign by three candidates.

In the latest count, incumbent School Committeewoman Amy Breault Zolt has 829 write-in votes, former School Committee member Raymond J. Spooner has 811 votes and incumbent School Committee Chairman Gordon Gould has 225, McGill said.

There are 53 write-in ballots in the sealed containers that must be counted, McGill said.

—Tatiana Pina

Warwick reelects School board chairman

WARWICK — School Committee Chairman Christopher E. Friel won a second term on the board while first-time candidate Patrick E. Maloney Jr. earned the other open seat after a count of mail ballots yesterday.

On Tuesday, the four-way race for two citywide seats on the nonpartisan board was too close to call with more than 2,000 mail ballots to be counted.

Yesterday’s count showed that Friel kept first place, while Maloney was able to secure the second seat with a narrow margin over Kevin J. McAteer. Candidate Kevin A. Oliver Sr. remained in fourth place.

According to results from the state Board of Elections, Friel was the top vote getter with 15,140 votes. Maloney tallied 13,640 to McAteer’s 13,462, keeping the same 178-vote margin of victory he had on election night.

Friel, who had to preside over some severe budget-cutting sessions this year, was the top vote getter despite visible opposition outside polling places from the union that represents school clerks, custodians and other noncertified employees.

—Staff report