FRESNO (KMJ) — Following months of preparations and possibly years of campaigning, officials have not only declared June 5th’s primary day secure, but popular as well. Fresno County’s Registrar of Voters told KMJ News that turnout is expected to be around 50%.
“There’s a lot of organization going on,” revealed Brandi Orth. “It takes thousands of people to pull off a county-wide election.”
After allegations of voter fraud following the 2016 presidential election, Orth added that ensuring the ballots accurately reflect the will of the voters is of paramount importance.
“The voting equipment is always in my possession and control, under multiple layers of security in our warehouse. We only allow it to go to the polls on election day, and then election night we bring it home again. So it’s always under our control.
“Also the memory card which holds all the votes on the device is double-sealed with numbered seals, which we keep track of so when the device comes back we make sure that the seals are still pristine and that all the serial numbers match. So we’re very confident that Fresno County has secure elections.”
Answering the phones right now at @FresnoCountyCA‘s Registrar of Voters office are members of the @LWV – helping with last minute questions on this #PrimaryElection day. More on @KMJNOW. pic.twitter.com/nju6KpNu0w
— Dom McAndrew (@DomMcAndrew) June 5, 2018
The polls opened at 7am and close at 8pm, but staff cannot simply go home when the last voter leaves.
“So about 8.02pm is when we will release the first set of results…and then after that we will wait until the polls come in, and we will do several updates throughout the evening just depending on how the polls come in. We’re a very large geographic area and it takes a while to get all of those things in.”
The link to the Fresno County results page can be found clicking here.
Hear the report from KMJ’s Dominic McAndrew as it aired:
