INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana’s Election Division says nearly 98 percent of voters who requested absentee ballot applications for the state’s primary have completed and returned those ballots.

Election Division Co-Director Angie Nussmeyer says more than 286,000 completed ballots had been received by Indiana county officials by 8 a.m. Tuesday. That’s about 97.6 percent of the more than 293,000 ballot applications requested.

Indiana has seen a record number of absentee ballots cast for Tuesday’s primary. The previous record was about 185,700 absentee ballots cast for 2008’s primary.

Nussmeyer says this year’s absentee ballot votes “beat the 2008 number pretty handily.”

Absentee ballots include in-person ballots cast at county offices or early voting centers, mailed-in ballots and those received by other means.

About 63 percent of the absentee ballots voters requested were Republican primary ballots.