DOVER-FOXCROFT – Residents voted 561 to 405 to organize a charter commission to revise or establish a new charter during a secret ballot referendum held Tuesday on the municipal budget.

By a good majority, residents approved the $2.8 million municipal budget for 2006-07.

Elected Tuesday to serve on the charter commission were Eric Annis with 674 votes; Thomas Brown, 364; Jane Conroy, 385; Charles Merrill, 553; David Perkins, 459; and Robert Stutzman, 512. There were eight other candidates vying for the seats.

Residents also voted 551 to 427 to have all warrant articles of $15,000 or more decided in a secret referendum vote. That same article allows special town meetings to be called for warrant articles costing less than $15,000, but the combined value in any fiscal year must be less than $25,000.

Town Clerk Barbara Moore, who was re-elected to the office Tuesday, said more than 450 absentee ballots were processed for the town’s first secret ballot referendum process – more absentee ballots than the town received during the last presidential election, she said.

Cynthia Freeman Cyr and Raymond Larrabee Jr. were elected as selectmen. The votes were as follows: Cyr, 499; Larrabee, 449; Susan Mackey-Andrews, 396, and Mary Shapleigh, 301.

Gordon MacKinney was returned to the HAD 4 board of directors, and Stephen Pratt was elected to the executive committee of the Thompson Free Library. Joy LaCasce and Blake Smith were returned to their seats on the SAD 68 board of directors.