A record number of Park County residents voted in this year’s general election — including several thousand Powell area voters who endured long lines to cast their ballots.

According to unofficial results released by the Park County Clerk’s Office, 16,871 county residents participated in the election, which represents roughly 69% of the voting age population. That was just ahead of the 16,815 ballots cast in November 2020.

This year’s total was boosted by a record number of early voters. In the 28 days leading up to Tuesday’s election, 6,132 local residents cast their ballots at the Park County Courthouse. Another 2,879 people voted absentee while 7,860 residents traveled to their polling place on Tuesday.

While turnout was generally described as “steady” at polling places around the county, the lines grew unusually long at the Park County Fairgrounds’ Heart Mountain Hall, where Powell area voters cast their ballots. The lines persisted throughout the day, with wait times sometimes exceeding an hour-and-a-half. Enough people were still in line when the polls closed at 7 p.m. that it took them until 8:30 p.m. to finish voting.

First Deputy Park County Clerk Hans Odde said the elections office plans to take a look at what caused the lines.

The clerk’s office moved Garland and Frannie area voters to the fairgrounds when the area’s longtime polling place, the Garland Community Church of God building, went up for sale last spring. That change brought roughly 240 more voters to Heart Mountain Hall on Tuesday. They were among 3,229 people who voted at the fairgrounds.

Beyond digging into the numbers, Odde said elections staffers plan to sit down with some of the Powell election judges to brainstorm ideas for speeding up the process.

“We’re going to look at the data first and then hopefully be able to make some determinations about, ‘Was it a big turnout? Was it slow lines?’” Odde said Wednesday. “We’ve got to look at the whole thing.”

Student teacher Sage Whicker re-registered to vote on Tuesday, which added some time to her voting process. Whicker said she was lucky in that she was able to work with her host teacher “to make sure I can do my civic duty.”

While there were dozens of races on the ballot, the presidential race always proves to be the top draw for voters, and this year was apparently no exception.

It was the first election for Powell High School senior Drake Heintz, who was a little nervous about casting his first ballot. But overall, he said, “it just felt good.”

Heintz said he was caught off-guard by the size of the crowd at the polls, but he also called it inspirational.

“All these people came here out of their [own] time just to help vote for our country’s next leader …,” he observed. 

In Republican-heavy Park County, former President Donald Trump carried the day in a big way, receiving 13,079 ballots or 78.1% of the vote. The Republican nominee’s total more than quadrupled the 3,259 votes (19.5%) for Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee. 

Trump’s popularity appears to have only risen in Park County over the years, with his share of the vote jumping from 73.6% in 2016 to 76.7% in 2020 to his most recent 78.1% showing.

On the statewide level, 71.6% of Wyoming voters backed Trump and the result was never in doubt; The Associated Press called Wyoming for the Republican moments after the polls closed — even as voters were still casting ballots at the fairgrounds.

Full results are available at parkcounty-wy.gov/county-elections.

(Tribune senior reporter Mark Davis contributed reporting.)