North Stonington — The town's registrars of voters and election moderator will meet Wednesday morning and may call for a recount of the votes in Monday's school referendum, which passed by just three votes, Registrar of Voters Gladys Chase said Tuesday night.

Opinions had differed on whether a recount would take place. Monday night after the vote on a $38.5 million school renovation project, Chase said she believed a recount would be triggered only in elections and when individuals felt their voting rights had been violated, though she said she would need to verify the rules.

However, after reading a state statute on close muncipal referendums, First Selectman Shawn Murphy said he believes the town would have to conduct a "recanvass" of the votes. He forwarded the statute Tuesday evening to the town's registrars of voters.

Chase also said she had received a verbal request from a resident for a recount.

She noted that the moderator, Patricia Turner, would have to call the recount.

The recanvass statute reads as follows: "In the case of an election or referendum wherein the difference between the 'Yes' and 'No' vote on a question was less than one-half of one per cent of the total number of votes cast for the question but not more than two thousand votes, the moderator shall proceed forthwith to cause a recanvass of such returns to be made."

In North Stonington's vote on Tuesday, the winning margin was 0.16 percent.

The town's last recanvass took place during the 2013 election in which former Selectman Bob Testa defeated candidate Brett Mastroianni by one vote.

Both of the town's registrars of voters had the day off Tuesday following the referendum, and the town clerk was not in the office.

Patrick Gallahue, communications director at the deputy secretary of the state's office, referred all questions about the interpretation of the state statute to the town attorney and the registrars of voters.

The town does not have a single attorney on retainer.

In the case of a recanvass, the town must set and post a date and time for the recanvassing to take place.

Recanvassing involves publicly re-feeding the ballots through the machine and examining them for defects.

The school referendum led to heated arguments over the past month and a divided town meeting.

Tim Pelland, who opposed the project, said that he was impressed with the turnout but that the tone of the debate on social media had taken a toll on a lot of people.

"If you read Facebook and social media, it got pretty testy and personal," he said. "I understand people are passionate, but these are your neighbors, too; you may go to school together (or) church."

He and many others in the town have suggested putting together a block party to bring the community back together.

"I think it's important for the town to move foward, I think it's very important for people to get over this emotional wave that we had," he said.

Murphy credited the work of the tri-board, instituted over a year ago to address common concerns, as a way of bringing everyone to the same table to talk about the building project.

The next tri-board meeting will include discussions about 10-year strategic planning for the future and likely will come with an update from the Ad Hoc School Building Committee.

n.lynch@theday.com