There’s nothing like a hotly-contested election to drive up voter participation - even in the midst of a pandemic.

Statewide, more than 1.52 million people surged to the polls, cast ballots in the mail or voted early for Tuesday’s General Election, a 7.3 % increase over the 1,452,992 who voted in the last presidential election.

In Kingfisher County, both voter registration and participation showed increases over the 2016 election. As of Nov. 1, 8,580 total county residents were registered to vote, including 6,244 Republicans, 1,538 Democrats, 755 Independents and 43 Libertarians.

That’s about a 2.92 % increase over the Nov. 1, 2016, numbers when 8,336 were registered, including 5,684 Republicans, 1,968 Democrats, 674 Independents and 10 Libertarians.

Total voter turnout in the county increased by a slightly higher percentage (3.3 %), with 6,457 votes cast in the presidential race, compared to 6,131 in 2016.

But the real difference between the two presidential years came in the number of voters who chose to cast their ballots early, either via mail-in absentee ballots or early in-person voting at county courthouses.

Driven primarily by pandemic concerns of avoiding Election Day crowds, nearly three times as many state voters chose to mail in their ballots this year, versus the 2016 election.

Statewide, a total of 280,799 absentee ballots were processed, compared to 101,253 in 2016, an increase of 177%.

Early voting across the state increased considerably less, 9.7 % (from 152,126 in 2016 to 167,031 last Tuesday).

Kingfisher voters took the early voting route in even more significant numbers.

Mail-in absentee balloting nearly doubled (94.2 %), from 245 in 2016 to 476 this year, but early voting at the Kingfisher County Courthouse also jumped significantly (43.3 % ), from 815 to 1,168.

Participation also increased when measured as a percentage of registered voters.

In 2016, about 35.9 % of registered voters chose to stay home, but this year, that percentage dropped to 32.4 % .

While some metropolitan area polling sites reported waits of several hours or more, the longest wait time reported in Kingfisher County in response to a Facebook query was one hour at the Hennessey Public School Auditorium.

“I waited an hour in Hennessey. Got there at 5:30 p.m.,” Alicia Seiger reported on the Times & Free Press Facebook page.

“They said it had been like that all day. “It was great to see the turnout.”