Fresno County saw record voter turnout in the 2020 election. Here’s how many cast ballots
A record number of Fresno County voters cast ballots in the Nov. 3 election, according to numbers certified on Friday by the county Registrar of Voters Office.
The registrar tallied 370,068 ballots submitted, which is 74.65% of the 495,748 residents who are registered. The number of early votes returned was also record-setting in the week running up to Election Day, according to Registrar Brandi Orth.
The Registrar of Voters Office website said the presidential election had been certified on Friday. Counties have until Dec. 3 to certify.
Orth has previously said the last presidential election in 2016 was at about 67% turnout — a year that had about 55,000 fewer registered voters than 2020.
Tulare County saw 74.53% of its 199,494 registered voters cast a ballot, according to county Registrar of Voters Michelle Baldwin. That turnout is slightly lower than the 2016 presidential election, but the county also had more than 50,000 more people registered this year.
More than 80% of Madera County’s 67,743 registered voters cast ballots. About 76% voted four years ago in the last presidential race.
Local races
A number of tight races continued up to this week.
Former Rep. David Valadao recaptured his seat in the House of Representatives, ousting Democrat Rep. TJ Cox. Their 2018 match came down to a difference of fewer than 900 votes.
The Associated Press declared Valadao, a Republican from Hanford, beat Cox, D-Fresno, on Friday. Valadao is winning by about 1,700 votes with some ballots still left to count, but the AP calls many races before they’re fully counted based on calculated projections of how likely the result is to change.
Valadao declared victory on Wednesday, before AP had called the race. In his statement, he made it clear his first priority is delivering help for the coronavirus pandemic.
All five Fresno County school bond votes — Clovis, Central, Riverdale, Sanger, and Washington Unified — reached the 55% approval required to pass, according to the final results.
Fowler City Council had three seats on the ballot for six candidates. Juan Mejia (1,303) and Karnig Ronald Kazarian (1,299) had two seats in the final results, and Daniel Parra (1,159) edged out Leonard Hammer (1,123) for the third.
Presidential election
Fresno County results show President-elect Joe Biden received 52% of the vote and President Donald Trump got 45%. The remainder of the votes were either write-in or third party candidates.
Merced County also supported Biden. Trump won Kern, Kings, Madera and Tulare counties.
This story was originally published November 27, 2020 at 4:43 PM.
