Apparent New Rice County Attorney and Commissioner

Rice County voters have narrowly elected a new County Attorney and decided to keep the current Sheriff.

The margin in the County Attorney's race was 118 votes.  There were 90 write-in votes, 31 in Northfield and 22 in Faribault.

Brian Mortenson received 12,366 total votes and incumbent John Fossum 12,248.

Mortenson carried Faribault and Fossum Northfield where each of the candidates live.

Mortenson captured 20 Precincts, Fossum 12.

Current Sheriff Jesse Thomas was appointed by the County Board of Commissioners to the position upon the departure of former Sheriff Troy Dunn who left last November to move to Arizona for his wife's job opportunity.

Thomas was challenged by Sgt. Ross Spicer for the job.

Thomas won in all 32 Rice County Precincts with a total of 17,910 votes to 7,056 for Spicer.  There were 124 total write-in votes including 62 in Northfield and 23 in Faribault.

According to unofficial results from Tuesday's election Gerald Hoisington will be the new Commissioner representing District 3 in Rice County.

The district includes two city of Faribault precincts.  Precinct 2 and Precinct 3.

The margin of victory over Samuel Temple was 134 votes.  Vote totals are not official until they are canvassed.

Hoisington had 770 votes in Precinct 2 and 1,036 in Precinct 3 while Temple garnered 641 in Precinct 2 and 1,031 in Precinct 3.

There were 15,916 votes cast in the rural areas of the county.  Northfield had 13,200 and Faribault 11,978 total votes counted.

KDHL spreadsheets which are clearly unofficial show a 61.4% turnout in Faribault, 69.4% in Northfield and 72.6% in the rural areas of the county.

Total turnout was approximately 68.4% in Rice County.

Unofficially Northfield Ward 1 Precinct 2 led the way with a 80.5% turnout.