Wichita ? Machinists at The Boeing Co.’s Wichita plant scraped together enough votes to strike, but they were outvoted by the union’s larger Seattle membership, a union official said Saturday.

About 200 machinists gathered at the regular monthly union meeting at union hall Saturday in the hopes of learning as many suspected that the Wichita workers voted to strike while their counterparts did not. Union leaders did not release the Wichita vote.

The only tally that counts, though, is the one including workers in Wichita, Seattle and Portland, Ore. Some 62 percent of the union’s members voted to reject the contract and strike. But union bylaws dictate that unless 67 percent vote to strike, a contract offer is automatically accepted.

The vote comprised two questions: whether to approve Boeing’s contract offer, made Aug. 27, and whether to strike.

Just minutes before the 12:01 a.m. strike deadline, Wichita workers had been so certain that a strike authorization vote would pass that they had already gathered at union hall holding strike signs and huddling together ready to march down the street in front of Boeing.

When they found out that the union membership as a whole refused to strike, many of the Wichita workers shouted cusses. Some cried.

“Wichita, Kan., is not the weakest link … the solidarity lies in Wichita,” said Boeing worker Betty Brooks.