The losing candidate in the race for a seat on the Noble school board on Thursday requested a recount, then decided not to go through with it.

Mathew Roy lost to incumbent Margaret “Peg” Wheeler by 72 votes in this week’s Maine School Administrative District 60 election, according to results released Wednesday. Wheeler received 820 votes to Roy’s 748 in their bid for the school board seat representing Berwick.

Roy said he contacted Berwick Town Clerk Robin Patterson on Thursday morning to request a recount.

He said Patterson then sent him an email explaining the next steps: He had until Friday morning to confirm whether he wanted to proceed, and until Monday morning to pay a required deposit if he did.

By Thursday evening, Roy had decided against following through with the recount.

Roy said Patterson explained that only about 150 ballots in the race were hand-counted, so he felt that his chances of picking up more than 72 additional votes were slim.

“I wasn’t gonna do this to begin with,” Roy said in a phone call. “People online were calling, ‘recount, recount, recount,’ and I kind of thought it was selfish of myself to not ask for a recount, considering all these people came out and supported me.”

The results of the school board election were released around 6 p.m. Wednesday — 22 hours after polls closed — and Roy notified voters of his request 13 hours later, via his Facebook page. He said the delay in getting results was another reason he initially requested a recount.

RECOUNT RULES

According to Maine law, any losing candidate in a municipal race can request a recount within five days of an election.

But since the margin of victory in the MSAD 60 race was more than 2% and the combined vote total for each candidate was over 1,000, Roy would have been required to submit a deposit in an amount determined by the clerk.

That deposit must be at least 50% of the estimated full cost of the recount, according to state law.

If the recount changes the result of the election, the deposit is returned to the candidate who requested it. But if not, that candidate has to pay the town for the full cost of the recount.

Darci Wheeler, first vice president of the Maine Town and City Clerks’ Association and Bath’s city clerk, said recount estimates are typically based on how long the process is expected to take and how many people the town would need to enlist.

Roy said Patterson did not provide him with a firm estimate but that the potential cost was not a factor in his decision to rescind his request.

Patterson did not respond to calls Thursday seeking comment on the potential recount.

A CHARGED RACE

Peg Wheeler, the winner of the race, said Thursday that she hadn’t spent any time worrying about a potential recount. She said she feels for town officials who spent several hours Wednesday counting ballots by hand.

“They went absolutely above and beyond to maintain transparency and comfort with the (hand-counting) system,” Wheeler said. “I just feel bad.”

Since announcing his run for MSAD 60 school board in February, Roy relied on social media to share his platform. Discourse on his Facebook account sometimes got heated.

In March, Roy said the district was “bullying” him after he received a truancy letter about one of his children from Superintendent Audra Beauvais. In April, he said his wife had been labeled a Nazi by a teacher and received death threats.

Roy also directed a number of posts toward Wheeler, calling her supporters “childish” and saying they had stolen, kicked down or run over his campaign signs.

Outside the polls Tuesday, Wheeler said she had never experienced such a contentious race in her 20 years as an elected official.

“We’ve kind of been joking that we want to start a campaign called ‘make the school boards boring again,’” she said.

MSAD 60 covers Berwick, Lebanon and North Berwick; its nine-member school board includes three representatives from each town.