By SANDY McGEE

CUMBERLAND — Voters this Election Day will decide the outcome of two closely watched races for seats on the Cumberland Town Council.

Two incumbents, James T. Higgins and Bruce A. Lemois, are vying for two at-large seats on the Town Council. Newcomer James McLaughlin is also attempting a write-in campaign for one of these two available seats.
This particular Town Council race made headlines after the Democratic Primary in September, when candidates Lemois received 2,853 votes while McLaughlin received 2,850, a difference of only three. Higgins was the frontrunner with 3,116 votes.
A recount of the Primary Election ballots later revealed a tie between Lemois and McLaughlin with 2,855 votes each.
After reviewing a state statute, the town Board of Canvassers voted to refer the deadlocked race to the Democratic Town Committee, which later held a secret ballot that selected Lemois, the endorsed party candidate, as the winner.
McLaughlin’s attorney, Brandon Bell, took the issue to court following the Board of Canvassers’ decision. After weeks following a Superior Court judge’s decision to deny a request for a preliminary injunction, McLaughlin announced his intentions to hold a write-in campaign against Higgins and Lemois.
Higgins, council president for the past two terms, is a lawyer and former member of the Cumberland School Committee. He is a graduate of Providence College, a trustee of the Boys and Girls Club of Cumberland and Lincoln and a member of the Knights of Columbus and the Democratic Town Committee.
Lemois, past president of the Berkeley Fire District, is seeking his second term in office. He is employed as an operations manager for ASI Inc. in East Providence. He has attended Northeastern University in Boston.
McLaughlin, an Army veteran of the Vietnam War, is a retired auto mechanic. He is a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and a grand knight of the Knights of Columbus. He has never held a town office.
The town will also see a democrat face off against a republican candidate in the race for the District 5 seat on the Town Council. Incumbent Mia A. Ackerman, a democrat, is running against republican candidate Mark G. Dosdourian.
Ackerman, who is running for her second term in office, is a self-employed real-estate title examiner and a former member of the town Juvenile Hearing Board. She is a 1983 graduate of W.C. Mepham High School in Bellmore, N.Y., and a graduate of the State University of New York (SUNY), Binghamton.
Ackerman is a volunteer for the Cumberland Land Trust, the Friends of Franklin Farm and the Cumberland Hill Elementary and North Cumberland Middle School PTOs. She is also a member of the Blackstone River Watershed Council.
She lives in town with her husband, Barry, and their two children.
Dosdourian, who is endorsed by the Republican Town Committee, is a project manager for a survey and septic system design company in Cumberland. He is a 1980 graduate of the University of Rhode Island.
He is secretary of the Republic Town Committee and a communicant of Sts. Vartanantz Armenian Apostolic Church in Providence.
Dosdourian has lived in town for 19 years with his wife, Deborah-Jane.