The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t discourage Park County residents from voting, as more voters than ever participated in Tuesday’s general election.

A record total of 16,797 citizens cast ballots — nearly 1,500 more people than voted in 2016, the prior record. Based on 2019 population estimates, the turnout represented more than 72% of the voting age population, which would likely be the best figure. However, it’s possible that the Census Bureau’s population estimates are outdated.

Park County Clerk Colleen Renner attributed the high turnout to the high level of interest in the presidential race, but also to an influx of people moving into the county; realtors and other professionals have been reporting a surge in demand for housing, apparently as some people have looked to move out of big cities.

“We always have good turnouts” in presidential election years, Renner said, “and I think our population has increased over the last six to eight months.”

She added that, “We did a lot of registrations where people were giving us out-of-state driver’s licenses. We’ve seen a lot of that.”

Some of the people who registered at the polls on Tuesday were people whose voter registrations had lapsed because they failed to vote in the 2018 elections. Renner encouraged voters to keep their voter registrations active so that they and election workers don’t have to go through the more time-consuming process of re-registering at the polls.

Of those who voted, 7,405 did so at the polls on Election Day, 6,333 cast absentee ballots and 3,059 voted early at the Park County Courthouse, according to county data.

After only operating polling sites in Powell, Cody and Meeteetse in the primary election, all of Park County’s traditional polling sites were up and running on Tuesday. Renner had cited challenges related to COVID-19 and a shortage of election judges in closing sites in Garland, Heart Mountain, Clark, Wapiti and on the South Fork in the primary, but following citizen complaints, county commissioners had directed the clerk to reopen the sites for the general election.

After some last-minute cancellations and a few no-shows — including some due to COVID-19 infections — Renner wound up with around 117 election judges on Tuesday, she said. That was dozens fewer than the county had in 2018 and left a couple places slightly short-staffed.

However, “we made it work,” the clerk said. “Everybody that was there stepped up, worked a little harder.”

Unlike some other parts of the country, where ballots were still being tabulated on Wednesday, Park County had final, unofficial results by 9:15 p.m.

Wyoming elections officials had an advantage, as they were able to start processing absentee ballots last week and Renner said new machines helped with the process.

“I have to give credit where credit is due: That new equipment is outstanding,” she said, adding that her workers were “troupers.”

As for the election judges, “hopefully they had a good day, learned a lot and will step up to the plate again in two years when I need more judges again,” Renner said.