Voters on Tuesday soundly defeated the town’s proposed $35 million water and sewer project, voting nearly two to one to reject the $35 million debt exclusion in advance of next month’s Town Meeting.

They also re-elected chairman Richard Brewer to the select board, along with challenger Craig Dutra. School committee chairwoman Nancy Stanton Cross, the third candidate for select board, was just out of the running.

With write-ins still to be counted, the debt exclusion question failed 1,334 to 2,209. It was to be the first of two steps, the second being a Town Meeting vote, required to allow the town to appropriate the funds and bond for the project cost.

Project proponents said before the vote that if Tuesday’s vote failed, they would present the appropriation question at Town Meeting anyway. If it passes then, the plan is to ask voters again at a special election this summer to approve the debt exclusion.

Preliminary numbers, not including write-ins, which still need to be finalized:

Route 6

No: 2,209

Yes: 1,334

Select Board (two seats)

Richard Brewer: 2,121

Craig Dutra: 1,806

Nancy Stanton Cross: 1,581

School Committee (two seats)

Jason Pacheco: 2,531

Christopher Thrasher: 1,849

Assessor

Sue Ann McDermott: 2,526

Board of Health

Philip Weinberg: 2,449

Fish commissioner

No declared candidates, 315 write-ins.

Library Trustee (two positions)

Laura Beth Bennett: 2,319

Donald G. Davidson Jr.: 2,113

Planning board

Robert Daylor: 2,255

Commissioner of Trust Funds

No declared candidates, 179 write-ins

Landing Commissioner

No declared candidates, 103 write-ins

Housing authority (five-year seat)

Timothy Michael Cayton: 2,057

Housing authority (two-year seat)

No declared candidates, 133 write-ins

Housing authority (one-year seat)

No declared candidates, 85 write-ins