The residents in the three wards in the City of Blue Earth had to find their new polling station, which is now the Council Chambers at the new Blue Earth City Hall. Election judges for all three wards are seated here at the council desk, waiting for voters to come and register and receive their ballots. In Blue Earth there were 124 in favor of appointing the recorder and 99 for electing.

The position of county recorder will now be an appointed one instead of an elected position following the results of a special election held on Tuesday, April 14.

The question on the ballot read: Shall the office of Faribault County Recorder be appointed rather than elected at the expiration of the current term?

Unofficial results as of Wednesday evening, April 15, showed a total of 945 people voted and 523 (55 percent) voted to make the position appointed while 422 (45 percent) cast their vote for the position to remain an elected one.

A total of 33 precincts reported their votes with 22 precincts voting in favor of the ballot question, 10 voting against and one precinct (Jo Daviess Township) ending in a tie.

The city of Blue Earth voted in favor of having an appointed recorder in all three wards with the final vote tally being 124 for and 99 against.

The yes votes were twice the no votes in the city of Wells where the measure passed by a 42-21 margin.

The measure also passed in Winnebago, but by a very narrow margin. The final vote was 24 in favor of having an appointed recorder and 22 voting to have the position elected.

In fact, Minnesota Lake was the only city in Faribault County where the vote favored an elected recorder, and that was by a 15-9 margin.

The nine townships that also voted for an elected recorder were Clark, Delavan, Elmore, Lura, Pilot Grove, Prescott, Rome, Verona and Winnebago. Of those townships, the biggest opposition to having the recorder being appointed came from Lura Township and Prescott Township.

The vote was 20-5 in Lura Township to have the recorder be elected while in Prescott Township the vote was 38-16.

The result of the vote means that Minnesota joins about 75 percent of the other counties in the state who appoint their recorder. It also means that Kelly Hendrickson, who was appointed to serve as the interim recorder late last year, could have the word interim removed from her title by the County Board if they so desire.