Rural Rice County Leads in 2020 Voter Turnout

Nine of Rice County's 31 precincts had turnouts of 90 percent or better of registered voters in Tuesday's General Election.  According to Minnesota Secretary of  State Office numbers placed in our spreadsheets for computation purposes Webster Township Precinct 2 topped the county with a turnout of 92.3 percent.

Total registered voters were a record for Rice County 43,100 with 35,832 people casting ballots.  That's a turnout of 83.1 percent.

The rural areas turned out in greater numbers.  I included Lonsdale, Morristown, Dundas and Nerstrand in the rural numbers with 88.7 percent of township and rural cities registered voters doing their civic duty.  14,797 of 16,672 registered voters.

The city of Faribault finished with a 80.4 percent turnout.  Northfield had more people cast ballots but the turnout of registered voters was 78.8 percent.

The numbers in Faribault were 10,277 ballots cast of 12,744 total registered.  Northfield had 10,758 people vote with 13,654 registered voters.

The top precinct for turnout in Faribault was number 3 (Buckham Center) at 82.2 percent.  Precinct 1 (Curtis 4-H Building) 81.7 percent.  Precinct 4 (Our Saviours) 80.2 percent.  Precinct 2 (Washington Building) 77.3 percent.

Northfield Ward 1 Precinct 2 led the college city with 91.4 percent turnout of registered voters. Ward 4 Precinct 2 (St. Olaf) was at 55.4 percent, Ward 1 Precinct 1 (Carleton) 57 percent.  Traditionally the precincts with the colleges lead the community in a Presidential election but COVID-19 might have had an effect. In the 2020 General Election those precincts had the lowest turnouts of registered voters in the county.

The Precincts with the top 10 registered voter turnouts in Rice County:

1. Webster Township Precinct 2     92.3%
2. Northfield Ward 1 Precinct 2      91.4%
3. Wheeling Township                    91.2%
4. Richland Township                     90.9%  (Mail-in only ballots)
5. Morristown Township                 90.8%
6. Northfield Township                   90.7%
7. Bridgewater Township               90.6%
8. Shieldsville Township                90.4%
9. Warsaw Township                     90.2%
10. Northfield Ward 2 Precinct 1     89.0%

Here is the breakdown of cities in Rice County:

1. Nerstrand      88.4%
2. Dundas          88.0%
3. Lonsdale        86.3%
4. Morristown     85.4%
5. Faribault         80.4%
6. Northfield        78.7%

I did not include Dennison because a small portion is in RIce County.  The rest in Goodhue County.

According to the Minnesota Secretary of State website Rice County had 18,815 absentee/mail ballot requests.  17,097 were accepted.  1,718 outstanding as of November 10, 2020.

Here is a list of other area counties concerning absentee/mail ballots:

• Dakota County   173,560 requests    160,481 accepted     13,079 outstanding
• Dodge County        4,163 requests         3,827 accepted         336 outstanding
• Goodhue County   12,168 requests       11,146 accepted      1,022 outstanding
• Le Sueur County     9,462 requests         8,566 accepted         896 outstanding
• Scott County          51,013 requests       46,624 accepted     4,389 outstanding
• Steele County          9,188 requests         8,584 accepted       604 outstanding
• Wabasha County      4,919 requests        4,483 accepted       436 outstanding
• Waseca County        4,567 requests        4,104 accepted       463 outstanding