Park County voters turned out in strong numbers for Tuesday’s election — at least in the context of a primary.

According to unofficial results, 10,060 local residents cast ballots in the primary, which represents roughly 40% of the county’s voting age population.

As an election official, “you’re always a little disappointed — you’d like to see more people vote when you put in all that work,” said County Clerk Colleen Renner, but she thought it was still a good turnout.

Data indicates that — outside of the August 2022 election that featured the blockbuster Republican race between then-U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney and now-U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman — it was the best participation the county has seen in a primary. The total was up by roughly 1,000 votes from the 2024 primary.

Almost all of the contested races were again on the Republican ticket, and that was reflected in the numbers: Of the 10,060 ballots cast, 9,535 were from Republicans, meaning about 63.7% of all registered members of the GOP participated.

Early voting — which is offered at the courthouse in the month leading up to an election — continued to gain in popularity. A total of 2,845 residents voted in the elections office, which was a record for a primary election, topping even 2022’s numbers. Meanwhile, the number of absentee ballots cast sank to 1,462, which was the lowest figure since a decade ago.

Another 5,753 residents, or about 57.2%, voted on election day at their polling place.

This was the first election that Park County used electronic poll books, and Renner credited the switch for eliminating wait times at the polls.

“I was a little scared,” she said of deploying the technology for the first time, “but it went really well.”

Elections Deputy Katie Johnson said there were issues with some printers early in the day and a Tuesday afternoon thunderstorm caused the polling location at the South Fork Fire Hall to briefly lose the internet connectivity that the e-poll books use. However, those problems were quickly fixed and didn’t impact voters, Johnson said.

Renner said she heard positive feedback from both election judges and voters on Tuesday; both she and Johnson expressed gratitude to the pollworkers and residents for adapting to the switch.

Park County posted its complete, unofficial results around 8:45 p.m. Tuesday. They're available online at https://parkcounty-wy.gov/county-elections.