How Election Day went in Fresno County: Did a wildfire disrupt voting?
The polls have closed and the voters have done their part. Now all that’s left to do is count all the ballots.
In Fresno and neighboring counties in the central San Joaquin Valley, that could take some time – from several days to a week or more depending on how many vote-by-mail ballots, postmarked by or on June 7, arrive after Election Day at county clerk offices in Fresno, Kings, Madera, Merced and Tulare counties.
Although Tuesday was Election Day for California’s statewide primary, it’s more like an “election month” in an era in which the vast majority of Valley voters get their ballots by mail almost a month before the election, and have until Election Day to return them to county election offices.
The earliest returns reported Tuesday night in Fresno County represent most of the 73,000 vote-by-mail ballots that had either been returned through the U.S. Postal Service or collected from official election drop boxes by Monday. That amounted to about 15% of the ballots mailed out last month to almost half a million registered voters in the county.
Results coming in throughout election night include returns of in-person voting uploaded from voting machines at the county’s 52 vote centers.
Fresno County Clerk James Kus said Wednesday morning that he expected voter turnout to be in the neighborhood of 22% to 25% by the time all of the early vote-by-mail ballots, Tuesday’s in-person voting and late-arriving ballots coming in through the mail are counted. Over the past several elections, as much as 40% of vote-by-mail ballots weren’t received until or after Election Day – a share of ballots that could heighten the anticipation or perhaps turn the tide if there are particularly tight races being contested.
Kus said his office had over 35,000 vote-by-mail ballots (and some limited other ballot categories) remaining to count as of Wednesday morning not including any ballots received by mail (postmarked by June 7) through the June 14 cutoff. He expected to have those ballots counted by 5 p.m. Friday.
The certification of the election results is due July 7.
What happens now?
Ballots postmarked by June 7 must be received by elections offices on or before June 14 to be counted. Kus said that by law, ballots postmarked after June 7 cannot be counted.
Speaking of counting, processing and tabulating Fresno County ballots received by mail or at drop boxes after Tuesday will take place inside a locked room at the county’s elections warehouse – what Kus descried as a “fishbowl with windows” and cameras that allow observers to monitor the counting process. No one except permanent election or IT staff is allowed inside the room – not even Kus himself, because he’s an elected official appearing on the ballot. Kus was appointed as county clerk and registrar of voters in February 2021 to replace retiring clerk Brandi Orth; this is his first time standing for election, running unopposed.
Kus said he expects his staff to have completed processing, counting and reporting the vast majority of Fresno County’s ballots sometime Friday afternoon. What remains unknown is just how many ballots are in the post office’s pipeline to be delivered.
Counties have 30 days to certify their local election results. The counties’ results from statewide offices and legislative races are then forwarded to the California Secretary of State’s office, where they are aggregated and compiled into official results.
No major problems
No major lines or backlogs were reported by vote centers in Fresno County through early Tuesday evening, Kus said. “We had a couple of vote centers that were quite busy; Woodward Park and Clovis City Hall are big favorites in the community,” he said. But even with a relatively steady flow of voters at those locations, “no one’s going to make 1,000 voters today.”
There were no significant problems at voting locations – an occasional instance of a voter marking too many spots on their ballot and exchanging it for a new ballot from election workers, Kus said. “But the overall volume is such that even when we have to delay for a few minutes, it’s all good because there’s maybe only five people in the vote center.”
The one potential hiccup of the day came Tuesday afternoon, when a small wildland fire broke out in the foothills east of Fresno near Highway 180. The fire was a few miles east of the community of Squaw Valley, where one of the Fresno County vote centers was set up at the Bear Mountain Library & Activity Center.
“It was close enough to one of our vote centers that we were definitely paying attention to it,” Kus said. But Cal Fire crews made rapid progress to limit the spread of the fire, so voting operations were not disrupted. “That was basically the big excitement of my day,” Kus said.
This story was originally published June 7, 2022 at 8:17 PM.
