PARIS — A month and a half after a tied election between two candidates vying for selectman in Paris, Mike Risica was declared the winner of the run-off election Thursday night with a margin of nearly 70 votes.

The election was between Planning Board member, EMT and firefighter Zac Creps. Risica received 211 votes to Crep’s 143. There were six additional votes, including one blank ballot and one ballot that had both candidates checked. There were four write-in candidates, with one vote each, including Harlan Bean, George Hoffren, Bob Kirchherr and Al Bundy complete with a smiley face.

Risica must resign from the Planning Board as a result of his win.

Creps and Risica shook hands shortly after the election results were announced.

“Well now the work begins. I appreciate all the help I had from all the people in town. Believe it or not, most of all of this is from prayer and from God,” Risica said. “I really hope that I can live up to everyone’s expectations. I want to thank my wife for supporting me through this whole thing.”

Creps said he thought the election went well, noting this time around, fewer than 100 votes separated him and his opponent.

“I am very proud of myself. I’ve been in town about a year and I came in a tie with someone who’s run multiple times,” Creps said. “There was a lot of behind-the-scenes dirty politics not on Mike’s part but by his supporters. Mike Risica ran a clean campaign, (I) myself ran a clean campaign. … I will be running next year.”

A second election was needed after a tie resulted on the June 9 election. Each candidate garnered 163 votes and the ballots were run through the machine twice on that election night and hand counted, still resulting in an even split.

On Thursday night, the bright, blue ballots were hand counted by ballot clerks and signed off on by Deputy Town Clerk Dian Rainey and Town Clerk Liz Knox.

There were 333 people who cast votes on Thursday, Knox said, noting it was 11 more than the June 9 election. There were 28 absentee ballots for the run-off election, which was 12 more than the previous election.

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