After seeing a relatively high turnout during August’s primary election, Park County saw a relatively weaker turnout for this week’s general election.

Unofficial results say that, between the opening of early voting on Oct. 6 and Tuesday, 12,193 residents cast ballots in the county’s general election. That’s just less than half of Park County’s adult population.

The showing was well below the 16,871 votes cast in the 2024 general election and also below the 12,977 votes cast in the last midterm general election in 2022. However, it was better than the 11,918 ballots cast in 2018, another midterm year.

“It was an average turnout that kind of reflected an average ballot,” said First Deputy Park County Clerk Hans Odde, adding that the participation was “absolutely not strong.”

August’s election had about 2,000 fewer voters than this week’s, but the summer election was the county’s second-highest turnout on record for a primary. In contrast, four of the county’s last five general elections had more participation than this one.

While the Republican primary featured multiple highly contested races for several county and legislative offices, most of the races on Tuesday’s ballot were uncontested or lower key. Odde said he believes that Proposition 1 — a measure that would have halved residents’ property taxes on their primary residence — was the biggest draw on the ballot.

“I’m convinced that … if Prop One wasn’t on there, that we’d have had lower [turnout],” he said, “because the lack of races that were contested just didn’t garner a lot of excitement from voters.” 

Turnout on election day itself appears to have sagged to the lowest level in nearly 50 years.

The county unofficial figures say 6,696 people showed up at their polling stations on Tuesday — the lowest turnout for a general election day in Park County since 1978, according to historical numbers compiled by the Tribune.

Absentee voting, meanwhile, sank more modestly from recent years to 1,912 ballots cast.

The drops in Election Day and absentee voting appeared to be driven at least in part by residents shifting to early voting. A total of 3,585 voters cast ballots at the Park County Courthouse between Oct. 6 and Monday, the unofficial figures say. That was the second-most early votes cast in any election since the county began regularly offering the option in 2018.

At the polls on Tuesday, things reportedly went smoothly. Outside of a Big Horn Basin-wide phone outage, Odde said the lone hiccup was a printer label jam in Meeteetse. He said county personnel were able to fix the issue without disrupting voters.

The Park County Clerk’s Office had all of the county’s unofficial results tabulated and online shortly before 9 p.m., roughly two hours after the polls closed. The full results can be viewed online at parkcounty-wy.gov/county-elections.

The county’s canvas board is set to meet on Thursday afternoon to oversee a recount of the Ward 3 Powell City Council race and a random audit meant to ensure the ballot scanners accurately read voters’ marks. The three-member board — which consists of Park County Clerk Colleen Renner, a Republican and a Democrat — then expects to meet Friday to consider and, if all goes well, certify the county’s official results.

This marks the 12th and final election for Clerk Renner, who is retiring in January. She’s being replaced by Odde, who won the Republican primary and was unopposed in the general election.