About 2,600 ballots were rejected in Fresno County’s last election. Here’s what happened
About 2% of vote-by-mail ballots turned in by Fresno County voters for the June 2022 primary were rejected or challenged for a variety of problems – the 11th highest percentages among California’s 58 counties, according to a recent state report.
In Fresno County, more than 504,000 vote-by-mail ballots were issued to voters, including provisional and conditional ballots. Ultimately, 125,671 were returned by voters and accepted for counting, while almost 2,600 were challenged or rejected, according to data released by the California Secretary of State. The 2,595 rejected/challenged ballots amounted to 2.02% of ballots received by the county’s elections office.
Statewide, almost 106,000 vote-by-mail ballots were disallowed from counting in the June 7 primary, or about 1.56% of almost 6.8 million ballots sent in by voters.
“Fresno County has had an above-state-average challenge rate for many years,” said James Kus, the county clerk and registrar of voters. “We work hard to help voters ‘cure’ those challenges, sending letters to all challenged voters and further reaching out when possible.”
Among the reasons for rejecting/challenging ballots are:
- The voter had already voted.
- The ballot was missing from its official envelope.
- Multiple ballots were received in one envelope.
- The envelope had a missing or incorrect address for the voter.
- The voter failed to sign their ballot.
- The voter’s signature didn’t match their their voter registration card or their registration history.
- The ballot was not received on time to be counted. Ballots returned by mail had to be postmarked by June 7 and received by elections officials by June 14. Ballots dropped off at collection boxes, or delivered in-person at polling centers, had to be received by the time polls closed at 8 p.m. on June 7.
Fresno County stood out in the state’s report in two different areas: Of the 2,595 rejected ballots noted in the state report, almost 2,250 – or about 87% of challenged ballots – were disallowed because the voter’s signature didn’t match up with their voter registration history. That was a higher percentage than any other county in California, and well above the statewide rate of 23.7%.
Also, only nine ballots were rejected because they arrived after June 14, according to the Secretary of State. That’s 0.35%, the fourth-lowest percentage among California counties, and far below the statewide rate of 66.1% for that reason.
But Kus said the actual number of late ballots from the June primary is 1,137.
“Ballots challenged as ‘too late’ are predominantly returned via (the U.S. Postal Service), but a small portion can be returned via drop box after the close of the polls on Election Night,” Kus told The Fresno Bee.
The county quarantines almost all late-arriving ballots as soon as they are deemed late “so there is no possibility of them being counted,” he added. “The nine reported by the state is an artifact of when the (state) captured the data from the counties, probably in early June.”
The 1,137 figure Kus said, “puts Fresno County in line with many other counties in this category” at about 35% of rejected ballots.
Mathematically, the additional 1,128 late ballots not reflected in the state’s figures would also significantly reduce the percentage of votes disallowed for mismatched signatures – resulting in an actual figure of about 60% of all of the rejected ballots, also closer to being in line with the rest of the state.
For the upcoming Nov. 8 general election, Oct. 24 was the deadline to register. But conditional or same-day registration is available through Election Day at the county’s election office on Kern Street in downtown Fresno or at their polling place or voter center. Those voters will be allowed to cast their ballots, but those ballots won’t be processed or counted until county election officials have completed a registration verification process.
As of Sept. 12, there were 498,039 voters registered in Fresno County.
