Park County residents didn’t exactly flock to the polls in Tuesday’s primary election.

According to unofficial results, a total of 8,969 residents cast ballots, which represents roughly 37% of the county’s voting age population.

For a primary held in a presidential election year, the local turnout appears to have been the highest on record when measured by the total number of voters; it came in just ahead of the 2020 primary, in which 8,806 votes were cast.

Park County voters also appear to have been more engaged than the state as a whole. Across Wyoming, 122,693 votes were reportedly cast, which represented only about 27% of the adult population.

Still, Park County’s participation dropped steeply from the August 2022 primary election, when 12,366 voters, or 52% of the voting age population, cast ballots.

There were signs heading into Election Day that interest was significantly lower than 2022’s primary, which featured a marquee matchup between then-U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney and now-U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman. For example, 1,550 county residents voted early in a shortened 28-day early voting period — down from 2,355 early votes in the 2022 primary. Similarly, there were 1,525 absentee votes cast in this election, down from 2,216 two years ago.

“It just didn’t seem like there was a lot driving people into the office to vote,” Park County Elections Deputy Katie Johnson said Tuesday.

This was the first election held under new laws that barred voters from changing their political party after the start of the filing period in May. Of the 8,969 ballots cast, 8,533 — or 95% of them — were cast by Republicans, with 318 cast by Democrats and 118 by independent voters.

Election Day seemed to run smoothly and Park County posted its final, unofficial results around 9:30 p.m. The full results can be viewed at parkcounty-wy.gov/county-elections.