County clerk shares what election observers say they witnessed at Fresno vote centers

FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – Work is still being done to count ballots in Fresno County for Proposition 50, California’s ballot measure on redistricting. 

Fresno County Clerk and Registrar of Voters James Kus said his team did not have as much time as usual to prepare. However, they will still have enough workers to count each and every ballot. 

“A lot of vote-by-mail ballots have been returned today, so we’re going through those. We’re counting them. They’re pulling off the secrecy tabs, we’re preparing them to actually start going through that signature verification process beginning tomorrow morning,” Kus said late Tuesday night as more results in Fresno County trickled in. 

Despite this race being a special election, Kus said turnout was strong. He said some locations still had lines at 8 p.m. as the polls closed.

“They happen to be some of the most popular locations in town and places that had 800, 900 voters across that day. Woodward Park probably looking close to 1,200 voters at least today,” Kus said.

He also said those monitoring the election weren’t an issue, and he hopes to learn more about what they observed. 

“We did get some feedback from some observers’ questions about parking at one location, the lines. Definitely, we got a couple of questions about that. We had some questions about electioneering,” Kus said. 

He said overall, they did not have major issues. 

“It was a very usual election, even with any of the extra observers around. We had no complaints or questions about observers,” he said. 

The counting will continue for the rest of the week.