“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said County Auditor Kim Schaa. “This is the biggest response that I’ve ever seen.”

With nearly 4,700 absentee ballots, Schaa said didn’t expect to see crowds voting in person at the polls.

“But all day, the polls were busy,” she said. “It’s phenomenal.”

Some of the precincts saw even higher percentages voting on Tuesday. Precinct 1 and Precinct 4 each had about 81 percent of registered voters turn out.

Linda Bourne and Joyce Gelhaus check in voters at First Baptist Church, the Webster City 3rd precinct polling site. Poll workers said there was steady traffic throughout the day and by about 6 p.m., there were more than 300 voters. Officials said they saw many first-time voters coming through.

More than 45 percent of the registered voters in Hamilton County had cast absentee ballots or had voted early at the Hamilton County courthouse.

That tops the previous high of 3,505 absentee ballots in 2012 and 3,309 in 2016.

At the Webster City precincts, polling officials said there were strong numbers of first time voters.

Hamilton County overwhelmingly voted for Republican candidates at the federal and state level, with President Donald J. Trump receiving 62 percent of the vote, or 4,956 votes, while Joseph R. Biden received 2,842 or 36 percent of the vote. Incumbent Joni Ernst garnered 4,679 votes, while Theresa Greenfield received 2,913. Republican Randy Feenstra earned 4,690 votes to Democrat J.D. Scholten’s 2,947 votes in the 4th District Congressional Race.

Jesse Green, a Republican, received 5,232 votes while Democrat Cynthia Oppedal Paschen received 2,312 for State Senate District 24. Incumbent Republican Robert Bacon received 4,788 votes while his challenger, Democrat Jack Friend earned 2,631 votes for the State House District 48 seat.