INDIANAPOLIS – After a strong start, fewer Indiana residents are taking advantage of early voting for this year’s election than in 2008, when a record quarter of all Hoosier voters cast ballots before Election Day.

The Indiana secretary of state’s office said more than 361,000 early ballots were cast through Tuesday – about 10,000 fewer ballots than had been cast a week before the 2008 election.

But county offices remained busy this week as residents lined up to cast ballots ahead of Monday’s noon deadline to vote in person before Election Day.

Early voting was strong in Hamilton County, a Republican stronghold north of Indianapolis where 20,209 people had cast ballots by Tuesday. As of Wednesday afternoon, the county had logged about 500 more early votes than at the same time in 2008, said county election administrator Kathy Richardson.

Her office had seen a strong start to early voting in the first week of October, but that was followed by a lull. Richardson said it wasn’t until last Thursday that lines started to form, and since then, voters have waited up to an hour in lines to cast their ballots in the presidential, gubernatorial, U.S. Senate and other races.

“I think a lot of the people are a little tired of the advertising, and a lot of them think once they’ve voted, they don’t have to pay attention to it anymore,” Richardson said. “And they also know it’s going to be busy on Election Day, and they’re trying to get ahead of it.”

In Lake County, a Democratic stronghold that’s the state’s second-most populous county, more than 24,000 early ballots had been received as of Tuesday.

Secretary of state’s office spokeswoman Valerie Kroeger said that although a state law first allowed Indiana residents to cast in-person early ballots in 2003, many people are still learning that it’s a voting option for them, or are just discovering that doing so allows them to avoid big Election Day lines.

“It’s amazing just how many people say ‘I’m going to vote early’ and act like it’s something new, but it’s not,” she said.