LaFAYETTE — The LaFayette City Council made the results from the Feb. 12 election official Tuesday afternoon and barring any contested votes, there will be a runoff between the 2016 District B runner-up candidate Charlotte Blasingame and former mayor and longtime city councilman David Ennis.

The two received the most votes in the three-person election. Blasingame received 65 votes compared to Ennis, who received 40. The remaining candidate, Shannon Hunter, received 36 votes. One provisional ballot was allowed to be counted Tuesday, which went to Blasingame.

Due to a runoff, LaFayette City Clerk Louis Davidson said the city will need to rent voting machines again, hire poll workers and repeat everything it did in the past election, except for running an ad for a notice of an election.

“The only thing that changes is there is only going to be two names instead of three,” he said.

Blasingame and Ennis are vying for the seat left open by former mayor and city councilman Mathew Hurst, who resigned in June. In August, the council seemed set to vote on a replacement for Hurst’s seat, but opted for a special election instead.

If the council had made that appointment in August, there would have been no additional cost to the city, Davidson confirmed Tuesday. He said the appointed official would have been sworn in at the next meeting.

Mayor Barry Moody said the council made several attempts to avoid an election, but couldn’t come to a majority. He said each council member was supposed to make a recommendation and then there was to be a vote to see who would assume the seat. He said he was the only one to make a recommendation.

“I made a personal attempt to avoid having an election,” Moody said.

Now the city will conduct two elections for a seat that will be up for election again in August 2020.

Regardless of the cost, Moody said the City of LaFayette’s two remaining candidates are both qualified candidates and were on his short list in August.

“If anybody was sitting at the meeting, those were the two that I cut it down to, he said.

Moody recommended Blasingame, because she was the runner-up to Hurst in a close election — decided by 30 votes — and she seemed to want the job still, Moody said. He said Ennis threw his hat in the ring, but at the time, didn’t seem very interested in the position.

“I didn’t see anybody else that would even represent the district as it wanted to be represented,” Moody said.

As for now, he said Ennis has a wealth of experience and Blasingame has the willingness to do the job.

“With either, we will be able to move forward and do the things we want to do,” Moody said.

The special election is scheduled for Tuesday, March 26. The polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. central time. The election results will then be made official the following Tuesday, and the new council member will be sworn in April 8.