Nearly one-third of Fresno County voters cast early ballots
Fresno County voters cast almost 166,000 vote-by-ballots even before Election Day, mailing in their ballots or dropping off their envelopes at drop boxes throughout the county.
As of Monday, the number of ballots received by the Fresno County Elections Division amounted to more than 32% of the county’s registered voters, with thousands more expected to show up at in-person voting centers on Tuesday.
Fresno County has 514,799 registered voters. The number of early votes received surpasses the vote-by-mail return figure of more than 140,000 from the March primary election.
More than 85,000 of the early ballots were returned through the mail, while more than 80,000 came into official drop-off boxes scattered across Fresno and Fresno County.
People who chose to vote in person could do so at one of 10 early voting centers that opened Oct. 26, or one of 43 four-day voting centers that will opened Saturday. Both the 11-day and 4-day voting centers opened at 7 a.m. on Tuesday and will remain open until polls close at 8 p.m. on Election Day. Vote-by-mail ballots in their sealed, signed envelope can also be dropped off at the vote centers.
The Elections Division offices at 2221 Kern St. in downtown Fresno is also open for people to cast their votes or drop off their ballots until 8 p.m. Tuesday.
For voters who want to return their ballot by U.S. mail, it needed to be postmarked by Tuesday and received by Nov. 12 to be counted.
In the March primary, overall voter turnout was almost 31% in Fresno County. Most of those votes – more than 140,000 – were vote-by-mail ballots, compared to just over 16,000 cast by voters at vote centers that were open in the days before the March 5 Election Day.
Turnout was expected to be significantly higher for the Nov. 5 general election, driven by the presidential race between the Republican ticket of former President Donald Trump and running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, and the Democratic ticket headed by Vice President Kamala Harris and running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
This story was originally published November 5, 2024 at 4:42 PM.
