Fresno County Election Office getting ready for election day

Jason Oliveira Image
Thursday, October 27, 2016
Fresno County Election Office getting ready for election day
Just as most Americans get ready to cast their votes the Election Office is already counting ballots.

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Just as most Americans get ready to cast their votes the Election Office is already counting ballots. The Fresno County headquarters is feverishly sorting through tens of thousands of mail-in ballots ahead of election day.

"We have about 44,000 vote by mail ballots envelopes returned to us, every day will be an increase and we'll be processing that volume everyday and on the weekends," said Brandi Orth, Fresno County Clerk.

Thursday, we were allowed inside the counting room to see how the voting process worked. Come election day that room will be off limits to prevent ballot tampering.

"It's important to know that in California and here in Fresno County is a stand-alone room. There's no internet, there's no county connection, only authorized personnel are allowed in there," said Orth.

We took a unique look inside the Fresno County Election Headquarters where you see each envelop getting checked for signatures and then the letters are being sorted. They will go through almost 19,000 of these each day leading up to election day on November 8th.

Errors do happen from time to time so what should you do if you receive more than one ballot by mistake?

"If you are receiving multiple election materials please let us know so we can properly void that ballot and delete that record from our system," said Orth.

The election office said it is constantly updating its records to try to prevent voter fraud.

"We get regularly every couple of days a few more names the California State Department of Public Health of those who have passed away and we delete those from our system."

If you are a mail-in voter you still have another nine days to get your ballot in before the election.