Wright County residents came out in record numbers to vote earlier this month in the Nov. 3 elections and many of them did so by absentee/early mail-in voting.

In all, 82,723 Wright County residents voted, an increase of 18 percent above the number of residents who voted in the 2016 election (70,122)

In 2016, Wright County set an election record for the number of voters who cast their ballots absentee or by mail with 12,458. That number tripled in 2020, thanks in large part to the COVID-19 pandemic, as 37,423 Wright County residents voted absentee or by mail. That figure represented more than 45 percent of all votes cast. By comparison, in 2016, less than 18 percent of ballots cast were done so by mail or absentee.

The number of registered voters also spiked significantly as voters registered early to complete the absentee/mail-in process. At the start of Election Day 2016, there were 75,968 registered voters in Wright County, with an additional 9,158 voters registering on Election Day. This year, 87,361 voters were registered prior to Election Day, with an additional 7,639 residents registering on Election Day.

Given the number of absentee ballot requests that had come into the Wright County Auditor/Treasurer’s Office in the weeks leading up to the election, there was the expectation that the number of voters would increase in 2020, but few could have projected the total would increase to the level it would. The combination of a hotly contested Presidential election, several key state and local elections and the pandemic combined to shatter previous record numbers for voting across the board as Wright County residents let their voices be heard on Election Day.