One thing you can say about Fayette voters: Every two years, they swarm to the polls with percentages that put other counties to shame.

2010 was no exception, and Fayette may even have set a record for a non-presidential year. By the time polls closed Nov. 2, 42,378 Fayette men and women had cast their ballots.

That’s out of a total registration of 70,233, according to the Fayette County Elections Office online, representing a turnout of 60.34 percent.

That’s better than the 2006 gubernatorial year in which 56 percent of Fayette’s eligible registered voters cast ballots.

As good as this year’s turnout was, it pales in comparison to the last two presidential election years. In the 2008 election, more than 83 percent of Fayette’s voters exercised their constitutional right to a secret ballot.

But it was 2004 that may be Fayette’s high water mark. In that election that saw incumbent Republican George W. Bush run for a second term, a staggering 86.27 percent of Fayette’s registered voters made their choices known at the ballot box.