The last election still hasn't been certified, and already the wheels are in motion for the next one.

The candidate filing period for March's Clovis City Council election started Wednesday and runs through Dec. 7.

Incumbents Lynne Ashbeck and Nathan Magsig are up for election on the five-member board, and both said they would seek re-election.

Assistant City Manager John Holt said that during the filing period for the 2011 Clovis election, 10 people pulled papers -- and none returned them to challenge the incumbents.

That election was canceled and incumbents Harry Armstrong, Jose Flores and Bob Whalen were all appointed to the council for four more years.

It was the first time since Armstrong joined the council in 1970 that he didn't have to stand for election to win a new term.

-- John Ellis

Fresno County Measure O lagging in vote count

SEIU Local 521 is declaring victory on Fresno County's Measure O, the local ballot measure that proposed making it easier for the county government to turn over public-sector work to private contractors.

Fresno County Clerk Brandi Orth on Friday updated the vote count, and Measure O is behind by more than 3,100, with around 27,000 votes left to count.

The current Measure O tally is 102,655 -- or 49% -- in favor and 105,775 -- or 51% -- against.

Measure O was written by Fresno County Supervisor Debbie Poochigian. Under the measure, the five-member Board of Supervisors could privatize government services with three votes instead of the four now required.

Labor groups were strongly opposed to Measure O.

There were no other major changes as Orth said her office counted another 20,000 absentee ballots.

Orth hopes to count most of the remaining ballots by next Wednesday. Her office has 3,000 absentee and 24,000 provisional ballots left.

Local election officials must complete their count by Dec. 4.

-- John Ellis

'None of the above' bloc in Patterson-Whalen

This month's election marked the first test of the state's new primary system, in which the top two vote-getters in the June primary -- regardless of political party -- moved on to the general election.

The 23rd Assembly District battle between Republicans Jim Patterson and Bob Whalen was a test case for non-GOP voters.

Would Patterson or Whalen successfully woo them? Or would they simply tune out?

As of Friday, more than 16,000 ballots -- more than 10% -- from the Fresno County portion of the district didn't register a vote in the race.

Experts speculated that given the choice between two Republicans, many Democrats and possibly some independent voters registered with other parties opted to vote for neither.

But political analyst and former GOP legislative aide Tony Quinn said 10% of people choosing not a vote in a race is not too bad, relatively speaking.

"A lot of people just want to vote for president -- nothing else," he said.

-- John Ellis

Odds and ends

• Clovis High graduate Steve Ly won a seat on the Elk Grove school board.

Ly told The Sacramento Bee that his family moved to Clovis in the 1980s but his father, a mechanic, couldn't find a job, "so he and my mom picked strawberries, cherry tomatoes and sugar peas. On weekends we'd start at 5 a.m., make a fire, get warmed up and when the day breaks and the pails of tomatoes start filling up, I'd start carrying them back to the truck."

Ly, 38, has lived in Elk Grove for 15 years and made an unsuccessful run for the school board 10 years ago.

• In summing up California voters' overwhelming support of local tax measures, Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California, told The Associated Press: "It's one thing for them to pass in San Francisco or San Jose, but when they're passing in Fresno something else is going on."

The Political Notebook is a compilation of stories found on The Bee's Political Notebook Blog. To comment or read more, go to news. fresnobee hive.com/ political-notebook