A reporting error led to a brief tie in the Region 9 Board of Education race before officials confirmed Wednesday that Republican Todd A. Johnston defeated Democrat Leny Wallen-Friedman by 14 votes, according to town officials.
On election night, Johnston led Wallen-Friedman by 11 votes, 1,546 to 1,535, according to the unofficial results. The race was too close to call and led to a recount on Tuesday, which resulted in the reporting of a 1537 to 1537 tie vote.
Following Tuesday night’s report of a tie, the moderator, registrars and party leaders met to review the recanvass results. During that review, officials discovered and corrected a human transcription error that occurred while manually transferring the accurate hand-count totals for public posting, according to an announcement posted to the town website.
After reconciling the numbers, the verified results show Johnston with 1,549 votes to Wallen-Friedman’s 1,535.
