Fresno County preps for Election Day

With just over a week until Election Day, the Fresno County elections office is already bustling with activity.  Voters are casting their ballots, workers are processing them, and polling places are being set up.

“Fresno County is prepared for this election.  We're in the process now of delivering all of our ballot boxes and voting booths to all of our 272 polling locations,” said Brandi Orth, Registrar of Voters.

Orth is confident her staff is ready, but she admits there were problems with several thousand vote by mail ballots.  Ron Neithinger is one of thousands around that county that received a second ballot.

“Saturday I go to my mailbox and voila, I get another ballot.  So my first thought is, do I get to vote twice?” said Neithinger, a Fresno resident.

The answer, according to Orth, is no.  The explanation for a second ballot in Neithinger’s area is that a Fresno Unified school board race was accidentally left off the original one.

“We had 26 entities redistrict in Fresno County.  Then we have to overlay the precinct lines onto that district boundary line, and unfortunately we made a few errors in doing that,” said Orth.

Neithinger understands that mistakes happen, but wishes an explanation would have been included with the new ballot.

Orth said the corrected ballots should have included a letter explaining what happened.  She says the first ballot is now void, but if people don't revote, their first vote will be counted.