By Nathan Oster
Significant increases in the number of absentee ballots and new voter registrations made last week’s general election a little more challenging than usual for the Big Horn County Clerk’s office.
By week’s end the results of the Nov. 4 voting had been canvassed and Clerk Dori Noyes and her team of election workers were busy calculating voter turnout percentages for each of the county’s 13 precincts.
There were 5,339 ballots cast last week in Big Horn County.
To calculate turnout, Noyes said that figure represented nearly 96 percent of the number of registered voters on the books at the end of the business day on Monday, Nov. 3.  Statewide, the turnout — again not factoring in Election Day registrations — was set at 105 percent.
But new registrations were a major factor this year, not only in Big Horn County, but across America. Noyes reported that the county’s 13 precincts welcomed 649 new voters, many of them young.
When the Election Day voter registrations were factored in, the county’s total registered voter count swelled to 6,229. From a turnout standpoint, then, the 5,339 ballots cast equates to an 85-percent voter turnout for the county.
With 85 percent as a turnout percentage, some precincts — Otto and Hyattville at 92 percent, Shell at 90 percent and Greybull, Byron and Cowley at 86 percent — managed to top the county average.
Frannie had the lowest turnout, with 78 percent of its voters going to the polls last week.
Absentee balloting
Noyes said it came as no surprise, given the buildup nationally for the presidential election, that voters would do everything in their power to cast a ballot. For many either planning to be out of town or unable to make it to the polls for some other reason, that meant casting an absentee ballot.
While she was unable to say for certain, Noyes said she believes the county processed more absentee ballots than ever before, with slightly more than 1,100 coming in prior to last week’s election.
What makes that remarkable is that the rule of thumb at the courthouse, dating back to the days when Ellen Cowan Whipps was the clerk, was to expect 500 to 700 absentee ballots for a general election. For general elections in which voters cast ballots for president, 700 has been the norm, she said, so the 1,100 processed this year far exceeded those standards.
“Apparently people really wanted to vote this year,” said Noyes.
Other election news
Noyes said her office conducted a recount of the votes cast in the race for Big Horn County School District No. 1. William “Bill” Loveland and Nick Wilson finished neck and neck in last week’s voting, with each candidate garnering 449 votes from district voters in Big Horn County.
The tie was broken when the results from Park County were factored in, with Wilson’s new count rising to 462 votes, Loveland’s settling at 458. With just four votes separating them, it triggered a recount, which occurred on Thursday morning and confirmed the four-vote win for Wilson.
District 1 encompasses parts of the Burlington, Otto, Cowley, Byron, Deaver and Frannie precincts, as well as a sliver of Park County.