FARMINGTON – Turnout in Franklin County on Election Day was heavy, according to town clerks, and many towns received more than the usual share of absentee ballots.

Farmington Town Clerk Leeanne Pinkham is a veteran of the process, having overseen it since 1991. As of Monday, the town had received more than 1,035 absentee ballots, almost 20 percent of the approximately 5,600 registered voters in town, she said.

In New Vineyard, Town Clerk Arlene Davis said she collected 41 absentee ballots in a town with about 530 registered voters. It was busy in New Vineyard on Election Day too, she said. By 1:45 p.m., more than 200 voters had placed their ballots in the locked wooden box perched on two wooden chairs at the end of a table. She said she had extra volunteer counters coming in after the polls closed – three Democrats, three Republicans.

Standing outside the polls in New Vineyard on Tuesday, legislative candidate Thomas Saviello said he’d been to all the polls in his district.

“Win or lose, it’s wonderful to see everyone exercising their right to vote,” he said. “It’s what this country is built on.”

He reported that the town of Wilton had lines out the door Tuesday and had collected 500 absentee ballots. In the town of Avon, with a population of about 500, he said, 50 voters had made their choices early.

Pinkham said Farmington election officials took in more than 500 ballots in the first hour after polls opened. By 2:45 p.m. almost 2,000 had cast their votes. There had been no major issues to that point.

“We’re quite pleased,” she said in between feeding absentee ballots into a second scanning ballot box. “We could have used a couple more hands,” she added. Only 400 of the large pile of absentee ballots had been scanned by midafternoon.