Town voting day has passed but the race for town clerk in Hopkinton isn’t over yet.
Chuck Gangel, the town clerk since 2012, has requested a recount of Tuesday’s election results, Town Administrator Neal Cass said. The results showed former assistant town clerk Carol Harless as the winner by nine votes.
The recount is scheduled for Monday at 5:30 p.m. at town hall, 330 Main St. in Hopkinton. It is the first recount in town since a budget committee seat was contested three years ago, Cass said. That race had a wider margin and fewer ballots cast than this year’s town clerk race.
Harless garnered 469 votes, edging Gangel’s 460 in a race where 1,324 votes were cast, a margin of less than 1 percent. Amy O’Brien, whose husband Jim O’Brien chairs the town’s select board, placed third with 395 votes.
Gangel declined to comment on the results of the race or his request for a recount and asked not to be contacted about the issue. Harless could not be reached for comment.
State law outlines the process of recounting votes for town elections. A board of recount is formed and includes the town clerk, moderator and members of the select board. Gangel will not participate on the recount board because he is a candidate. All votes are recounted by hand.
The race was one of the closest contests in the state Tuesday as voters across New Hampshire elected local leaders.
Interest around the clerk’s race in Hopkinton grew after the select board moved the clerk’s office from the Bates building in Contoocook Village to town hall last fall. The board would not share details as to why the office was moved, other than that the decision was made by the advice of the town’s legal counsel, according to meeting minutes.
Harless, Gangel and O’Brien participated in a forum at town hall on March 6 where they faced questions about their position on where the clerk’s office should be located. All agreed the job can be done in either location, though Harless expressed that she would prefer it return to the Bates building.
Harless left her position as assistant town clerk in September, just a few weeks before the select board voted to move the office. She said at the forum that she spent some of the winter in Florida and intended to stay there, but her plans changed and she returned to Hopkinton and entered the town clerk’s race.
At the forum, Gangel said the office was moved as a “cost-cutting” decision made by the select board. After the meeting, selectwoman Sara Persechino told the Monitor that the move was “the result of an investigation conducted after citizen complaints.”
The Monitorreported in October the town’s lawyers suggested the office be moved to town hall.
The morning after the forum, Gangel acknowledged that the town’s legal counsel advised the move but said he had “no idea” why. Asked why he didn’t share that with the audience when the question came up, Gangel said he was unsure.