EAST MACHIAS, Me. — After a week of controversy over being initially left out of the tally in Maine’s Republican caucuses, residents of Washington County came out in high numbers on Saturday, and gave Ron Paul a majority of their votes. But the margin of victory was not enough to propel Mr. Paul ahead of Mitt Romney, who leads in the state count.

Mr. Paul won 163 votes; Mr. Romney, 80 votes. Rick Santorum received 57 votes, and Newt Gingrich, 4. Two people voted for other candidates.

In a recount announced on Friday, Mr. Romney was ahead in the state by 239.

The vote today capped a confusing week for Maine’s state caucus. The state’s Republican Party had declared Mr. Romney the victor on Feb. 11, even though Washington County’s vote had been canceled because of weather.



That decision kicked off protests, mostly from Mr. Paul’s supporters, about the caucus’s byzantine rules. State party officials were forced to rescind the original plan, and now say that all votes will be counted. The final results will not be announced until March 10, after all towns have voted and reported their results.

The presidential straw poll is a meaningless so-called beauty contest unrelated to the more important selection of the state’s 24 delegates, which will take place at a state party convention in May.

In Washington County, 306 people gathered to vote on Saturday, which the county’s Republican chairman, Chris Gardner, said was roughly triple the number who gathered in 2008.

Many voters said they were compelled to come after they were told their county — and votes — wouldn’t count.

“We wanted to show that we could make a difference, that we could sway the way the state goes,” said Laurel Beal, a Ron Paul supporter who attended the three-hour caucus with her 9-year-old son, Eli. “It was a long wait, but we did pretty well.”