BANGOR, Maine ā UPDATE:
Bangor voters elected Gretchen Schaefer, Susan Hawes, and Dina Yacoubagha to the city council on Tuesday, and chose Sara Luciano and Ben Sprague to serve on the school committee.
Bangor City Clerk Lisa Goodwin said 7,033 votes were cast in the off-year election.
Seven candidates ran for three open seats on the council. Two seats on the school committee saw five candidates.
- Hawes: 3,264*
- Yacoubagha: 3,009*
- Schaefer: 2,567*
- Butler: 1,670
- Brochu: 1,485
- Martin: 2,281
- Leonard: 2,470
- Blanks: 4,302
- Sprague: 3,982*
- Luciano: 1,953*
- Crawley: 1,586
- Schaefer: 1,802
- Smith: 1,847
- Blanks: 2,832
* indicates winners
UPDATE, 9:45 p.m. Tuesday
The first results from Bangor for Question 1, Question 2, and Question 3 are in:
- YES: 3713
- NO: 3217
- Blanks: 100
- YES: 5306
- NO: 1640
- Blanks: 87
- YES: 3940
- NO: 2978
- Blanks: 115
ORIGINAL: Early Tuesday morning, voters hit the polls throughout the state.
Bangor voters who did not cast absentee ballots can vote at the Cross Insurance Center.
Bangor City Clerk Lisa Goodwin said at noon that voting had been steady throughout the day.
This year the city saw more absentee ballot than previous years -- a little more than 3,000 votes, Goodwin said, which has alleviated the lines at the Cross Insurance Center.
Goodwin said about 400 absentee ballots have not yet been returned. Those can still be dropped off at the city clerk's office or the drop box outside City Hall. Goodwin asked residents not to bring their ballots to the Cross Insurance Center.
She said poll workers would work hard to get the results out as soon as possible.
"Well, I would like to say that we would have them right after the polls close but we have to process all the absentees that come back today and then we have to hand tally any ballots that couldn't get fed through the machine so I'm hoping by 9 o'clock to have some vote totals," she said.
"It shouldn't take more than 15 minutes to vote, it could take a little bit longer at dinner time tonight when a lot of people are getting out of work they'll stop and vote then," said Goodwin.
Goodwin would like to encourage everyone to vote tonight.
"For Bangor, we have our school board and our city council races, that's very important, they represent all the people in the city of Bangor and it's important that you get out and select your representatives," she said.
The Community Connector transit system in Bangor is offering free rides to voters today.