Larry Gordon was elected Tuesday, Jan. 31, to fill a five-month term on the Wiscasset Board of Selectmen.

Susan Blagden, the election warden, read the results at 8:37 p.m. The polls at Wiscasset Community Center closed at 8 p.m. The last vote was cast at 7:57 p.m. Gordon received 179 votes, while his opponent on the ballot, Katharine G. Martin-Savage, also a former selectman, tallied 107. Kim Andersson, a teacher and former school board member who ran as a write-in candidate, received 52 votes. The ballots were hand-counted.

Gordon previously served 27 years as a selectman, 21 of those as chairman. He retired from the board in 1998. In an interview with the newspaper prior to the election, Gordon said he based his decision to return to Wiscasset politics following the recent 14.1 percent increase in property taxes. He pledged to help get the town’s finances back under control.

Gordon takes office at the start of the 2017-18 budget process. Should he want to remain on the board,  he’ll need to file nomination papers again at the end of March.

Andersson, who was present when the results were announced, said she was pleased to have received 52 votes. “I plan to take out nomination papers for the board of selectman in March,” she said. Neither Gordon nor Martin-Savage was there.

Selectman Ben Rines Jr. was at the polls when the results were read. “I first served with Larry Gordon 38 years ago in December 1978,” he commented after hearing Gordon had won.

Just 348 voters turned out for Tuesday’s special election; 10 of the ballots cast were invalidated. At the Nov. 8 Presidential Election, 2,209 of Wiscasset’s 2,928 registered voters participated.

Town Clerk Linda Perry said voting was heaviest around the dinner hour. By noontime, only about 100 residents had voted. Sixty-six absentee ballots were cast. The election was the only item at the polls.   

The vacancy was created by the sudden resignation of Judy Flanagan in November. Flanagan had seven months left in her two-year term. Selectmen opted to hold the election to fill the vacancy as soon as possible. Flanagan, too, was at the polls to hear the results Tuesday night.