PAWTUCKET — School Committee member Amy Breault Zolt has won reelection in the write-in campaign for the seventh seat on the board.

Zolt edged out former School Committee member Raymond J. Spooner, 850 votes to 822, according to Registrar Kenneth R. McGill. School Committee Chairman Gordon Gould placed a distant third, with 226 votes, McGill said.

The counting of the write-in ballots was delayed after poll workers inadvertently stored the write-in ballots with the voting ballots in sealed containers that went to the state Board of Elections.

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

— Tatiana Pina