County polls busy Tuesday morning

This could be a record year for Sheridan County’s primary elections.

Sheridan County Clerk Eda Schunk Thompson couldn’t be sure of that Tuesday afternoon, but she said when she visited some of the county’s 14 polling sites Tuesday morning, she found them busy.

Thompson said at every polling place she visited, she saw voters coming in to cast their ballots. She said when she visited the polling place in Big Horn, at 20 minutes before the polling places opened at 7 a.m., an individual was sitting on a bench waiting to go in.

Schunk said she hoped people took time to thank the election judges, because they underwent a lot of training this year and had a lot to deal with.

As in other counties in Wyoming, a lot of new equipment was introduced in Sheridan County this year. Thompson said the new equipment is faster, and she’s happy to have it, but it has come with a lot of relearning and retraining for election personnel.

Among changes this year, in addition to the new equipment, Sheridan County had fewer polling places. Thompson said the county had already pared down to 18 polling places before the COVID-19 pandemic, then the Secretary of State’s office issued a directive that required cutting the number by another four.