By JOSEPH FITZGERALD

BURRILLVILLE — State election officials will hold a recount Monday to verify the winner of the third seat on the School Committee.

Fourth-place finisher Peter L. Lambert, who lost the seat to candidate Debra L. Stockwell by 22 votes, requested the recount last week.
The recount will begin at 1 p.m. at the Rhode Island Elections Division headquarters on Branch Avenue in Providence.
Both Lambert and fifth-place finisher Thomas P. Tatro — who lost by 41 votes — were eligible to ask for a recount by 4 p.m. Wednesday. The law says a post-election recount can take place if the election returns are within one percent of all votes cast for the office or 100 votes, whichever is less.
Only Lambert decided to challenge the results, which show Stockwell with 2,018 votes; Lambert with 1,996 votes; and Tatro with 1,977 votes.
There were a total of three seats up for grabs. Incumbents Dorothy A. Cardon and Joan M. Cote were reelected to the two other seats with 2,312 and 2,137 votes, respectively.
Stockwell is a former longtime member of the School Committee who served in the early to mid 1990’s. Lambert served on the School Committee in the 1990s and then lost a bid for re-election in 2002. He won his second four-year term on the committee in 2004.
Lambert was unavailable for comment yesterday, but did confirm at the School Committee’s meeting Wednesday night that he had requested the recount.
It became apparent soon after the polls closed on Tuesday that the race for School Committee would be a nail-biter. The final election results announced by the town clerk’s office at press time that night weren’t in fact “final” because one of the memory packs from the automated voting machine in Precinct 3 in Harrisville had not been read.
Once those votes were factored in, the results showed no change in the three winners for the three available seats on the Town Council - Nancy F. Binns, Kevin D. Heitke and Margaret L. Dudley - but a vastly different picture for the School Committee race, where eight candidates were vying for three seats on the committee. After the memory pack in question was read, Cardon was still the high vote getter and Cote remained in second place.
However, unlike the initial results - which had Stockwell as the winner of the third seat - a two-way tie emerged for third place between Stockwell and Tatro, both of whom received 1,929 votes each. The new tally also showed fifth-place finisher Lambert trailing close behind with 1,928 votes.
After the mail in ballots were counted by state election officials the next day, Stockwell emerged as the winner by just 22 votes over Lambert and 41 votes over Tatro.