A momentous presidential election appears to have driven voter turnout to new heights in the Upper Valley.

Inside Piermont’s polling station, moderator Joyce Tompkins, said turnout was the strongest she’d ever seen.

“We had a swarm when the polls opened” at 10 a.m., she said, counting 78 in the first hour, including 14 new registrants by 1 p.m. The town opened voting with 506 registered voters on the books.

“We never had so many the first hour,” Tompkins said.

Harry Pease, Orford’s moderator, echoed Piermont’s experience.

“Man, it’s been a really, really good turnout,” Pease said. “I’ve been here nine years and this is the biggest turnout I’ve ever seen. A lot of new registrants, too, as well as young people voting for the first time and people who have been around but not come to the polls in the past.”

Pease said 101 Orford residents voted in the first hour and by 1:30 p.m. between 25 to 30 new voters had registered, adding to the 902 who were registered when doors opened. Pease attributed the higher turnout to “the political atmosphere, obviously.”

When Newport Selectboard member Herb Tellor got to Newport Middle High School around 7:30 a.m. to help set up for the election, people were already waiting in line for the polls to open at 8.

“We usually get four or five at a normal election, not 30 or 40,” Tellor said.

When he was putting up signs along the roads, some people stopped to ask him what time they could vote.

“Very patient people,” he said about the crowd. “Everyone is in a pretty good mood, knock on wood.”

Tellor and other election workers asked people waiting in line if they were new voters. If they were, they brought them into the school gym to fill out voter registration forms.

By a little after 11 a.m., there had been about 40 new voters registered, Selectboard Chairman James Burroughs said, noting “that’s a lot of new voter registrations.”

As of around 11:15 a.m., 961 people cast their ballots, Burroughs said. By comparison, 382 people, out of the 3,582 voters on Newport’s checklist, voted in a September special Town Meeting to approve a plan to update the town’s wastewater treatment plant.

“We beat that at 9:30 a.m.,” Burroughs said.

Voters also came out in force in Enfield on Tuesday morning.

State Rep. David Fracht, D-Enfield, running for re-election for the single-town district of Grafton House 16, was impressed by the turnout.

“I’ve never seen a turnout (like this) in Enfield in the 15 years I’ve been in town,” said Fracht, who also chairs the Enfield Planning Board.

When polls opened at 8 a.m., he estimated that about 100 people were lined up waiting.

As of around 10:15 a.m., of the 3,164 voters on the checklist, 540 people had cast ballots in Enfield, assistant town moderator John Carr said. In addition, voters cast about 300 absentee ballots.

“It’s certainly more than we see in regular elections,” Carr said. “There have been quite a few new registrations.”

In Vermont, more than a third of voters had already cast ballots before Election Day. Still, traffic at polling locations in Windsor County was steady Tuesday morning.

Hartland resident Jennifer Waite said she opted to vote in person because it’s a chance to see her neighbors, and “there’s something satisfying in seeing your vote go in the box.”

Anecdotally at least, turnout seemed high. Hartland Town Clerk John Paulette said that roughly 1,100 ballots had arrived by Monday night, which is “more than we usually get.” More than 200 residents had voted by mid-morning.

In Woodstock, Town Clerk Charles Degener said that more than 1,500 votes had been cast by about 10 a.m. In 2020, 2,126 residents voted in the presidential election.

Three towns in the White River Valley, Sharon, Royalton and Bethel, saw nearly half of voters turn in their general election ballots by Monday. As of Monday night, 822 of the town’s 2,158 registered voters had cast their general election ballots, Town Clerk Karmen Bascom said. In Bethel, those numbers were 600 and 1,288, respectively. And Sharon counted 547 early ballots from its 1,288 registered voters.

A slow, constant stream of voters filed in and out of Tracy Hall in Norwich on Tuesday morning.

Out of Norwich’s 3,127 registered voters, 498 in-person ballots had been cast as of 1:18 p.m., adding to the 1,732 early ballots already processed, said Town Clerk Lily Trajman.

“The combination of early voting and early processing really helps with the speed of counting ballots,” said Trajman.

Across the Connecticut River, Hanover High School was chaotic compared to Tracy Hall. Police officers directed traffic and parking was hard to come by.

Inside, Hanover Town Clerk Bobbie Hitchcock was busy answering questions from the dozens of volunteer poll workers who directed the roughly 100 voters inside the gymnasium at any given time.

As of 11:30 a.m., more than 3,200 Hanover residents had cast their votes, out of the 7,948 registered voters, not including same-day registration.

Claremont voters in Wards 2 and 3 vied for parking spots at the crowded Claremont Middle School Tuesday morning as they prepared to vote.

Turnout in Claremont was “huge” compared to non-presidential elections, but similar to turnout in 2020, Claremont Ward 2 Moderator Allison St. Aubin said outside the school, where residents of Claremont’s Wards 1 and 2 vote.

The number of new voter registrations both ahead of Election Day and Tuesday morning was high, St. Aubin added.

Valley News Staff Writers Chris Dolan, Clare Shanahan, Emma Roth-Wells, Liz Sauchelli, John Lippman and Alex Hanson contributed to this story.