WARREN - And the winners are ... Philip Fisher and Mark Zuppo for the two available seats on the Girard Board of Education - the only race in Trumbull County this month where all the candidates were write-in candidates.

Winners and losers from four school board races with write-in candidates were announced Tuesday along with the certification of the Nov. 3 general election, which has spawned two automatic recounts because of tight results.

In school board races in Newton Falls, Champion and Mathews, the winning write-in candidates did not upset any ballot candidates.

According to the official results from the Trumbull County Board of Elections:

n Zuppo and Fisher won with 42 and 20 percent of the vote over challengers Jamie Devore and Sharon Spence.

n Incumbents Edwin Ballas and Brenda D. Koontz, a write-in candidate, who received 38 and 5.8 percent of the vote, are joined by David Rapczak with 47 percent of the vote, on the Newton Falls school board, besting incumbent write-in candidate Diane Shiley and Edwin Buchanan.

n Incumbents Maureen Seafert and Larry Durch, who received 48 and 41 percent, join write-in candidate David J. Mahan with 8.2 percent over William Bryant Jr. on the Champion Board of Education.

n Terry Woodyard, incumbent, Brian Stidham and Tarin Brown, write-in, who received 42, 32 and 9.9 percent of the vote, beat Brian Casagrande, D. Jean Cramer and Roberta Shields for three seats on the Mathews school board.

In two races, the narrow margin has spurred automatic recounts for Bazetta trustee and fiscal officer in Southington. Recounts are triggered when the margin is less than one-half of 1 percent.

In Bazetta, only 10 votes separate second-place finisher Donald Urchek and Theodore Webb, who received 705 and 695 votes respectively.

In Southington, the margin is closer as only seven votes separate Cynthia Speaker and Lorri Mills-Steinmetz, who received 707 and 700 votes.

The recounts are scheduled for Dec. 2.

Also Tuesday, the elections board rejected 18 absentee ballots for a number of reasons, including not containing the correct information and mismatching signatures.

rselak@tribtoday.com