Despite a high turnout of Democrats for both early and absentee voting, Chautauqua County once again saw a high Republican voter turnout on Election Day despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

Even with over 11,000 absentee ballots out, President Donald J. Trump carried the county for the second straight election, this time securing 63% of the vote and a 12,000 vote advantage over former Vice President Joe Biden.

Of those who requested absentee ballots, 4,828 were Democrats and 2,657 were Republicans. Of the over 14,000 who turned out to vote early at one of the three locations in the county, 5,604 were Democrats, 4,577 were Republicans and 2,840 were not registered to a party.

Midway through the day, the Chautauqua County Board of Elections reported that ballots processed on Tuesday had matched those cast during the nine-day early voting period, with 14,990 ballots cast of the 15,471 people who had shown up to vote through 12 p.m.

At Hillcrest Baptist Church in Jamestown, Mark Parsons, election inspector, said that there was quite a line of people when the poll site opened at 6 a.m. By 7:30 a.m. over 110 ballots had been cast.

“It’s been busy,” he said. “When we opened at 6, there were 20 people lined up. If you used your voter ID or license, that sped things up. That was new this year for a general election. But that was the first time we’ve used it.”

Still, the visual hype of a presidential election year was stunted by social distancing. Only 13 voters were allowed inside the site at one time.

“When Obama was elected, it was a mosh pit and busy a lot of the day,” he said.

“I figure it will be busy here, but it was astonishing how many people were there that day. But because of the distancing people tonight are patiently waiting outside.”

Charlene Unger was the election inspector at the National Comedy Center polling site located in the old Erie-Lackawanna Train Station on Second Street. Only 400 voters had shown up by 1:45 p.m. At 6 p.m. that number had only grown by roughly 82 voters.

Nevertheless, Unger, a medic by trade, said she was impressed by how systematic the process was and how people responded to the COVID-19 guidelines.

“Everyone has been really good about this,” she said. “They know that this is how business is right now. They respect that by wearing a mask and everything. The sneeze guards are a new thing and there’s been more allowed for safety.”

She added, “Because of COVID, we’d made sure that we have so many people in here at a time. We made safety our first priority for everyone due to the pandemic. We’ve only let about 15 in at a time. So those would have to wait outside if we were over that.”

Those who opted to appear to cast their ballot in person said they were happy to do so. Abnel Avila was one of them.

“I just wanted to do it in person. It just definitely felt safe,” he said.

Rick, who preferred not to share his last name, said he appeared in person due to fear that his absentee or early vote would not count due to Trump’s repeated claims that there could be fraud.

“We need to clean house. … The big house,” said Rick. “I waited to see if I could do it in person because of the shenanigans (Trump) was trying to pull. I wasn’t sure the voting by mail wouldn’t be challenged so I decided to come down.”

As of press time, a winner had yet to be declared in the federal election.