From registration to tabulation, election officials track the voting process electronically and with human eyes.

Fresno County Election Clerk James Kus and his staff are busy at work at the office’s warehouse at 4525 E. Hamilton Avenue. Ballots are coming in, verified, and eventually tabulated.

However, Kus will not press the button to count the votes until 8 p.m. on Nov. 5.

“We can begin tabulating as soon as we begin processing. We can’t look at the results until Election Day,” Kus said.

Right now, about 60 election workers daily are busy processing and counting ballots. Kus expects that number to swell to 600 for Election Day.

Kus provided GV Wire with a tour and inside access to the warehouse, showing how ballots arrive, and are then stored and counted.

‘Couple of Hours’ to Process Ballot

Kus said it takes a “couple of hours” to go through the process, from check-in to tabulation.

“In a given day, we can do about 60,000 ballots,” Kus said.

Kus said that any ballot received by Nov. 3 should be included in the first results released shortly after 8 p.m. on Nov. 5. The first set of results will be about 40% of the final total, Kus said.

Results will be updated a few times on Nov. 5, with the following update on Nov. 7.

There are 206 different ballots in Fresno County, based on where all the different jurisdictions (city council, school boards, congress, etc.) intersect.

Processing more would require a significant investment in equipment and personnel, Kus said.

Through Oct. 15, voters returned more than 21,000 ballots — two-thirds by mail, one-third by drop box. As of Sept. 12, there were 511,713 registered voters in Fresno County.

The county must certify the election by Dec. 3.

Election Security

The warehouse features many levels of security: alarms and keycard access, several security cameras, and caged rooms under literal lock and key.

Security guards will be “regularly around,” Kus said, but there is not a permanent presence.

Election workers receive training on how to deal with any disgruntled members of the public.

Ballots, when processed, are stored on shelves inside caged rooms. The caged area requires special keys — not even Kus had access without the assistance of another employee. Some of the cages also have barbed wire on top.

Anyone is allowed to observe the process at the warehouse or at a voting center.

It Starts With Registration

The first step before any ballot casting is registration. Voters need to be 18 on Election Day, and a U.S. citizen. An identification number — either a state ID, driver’s license, or last four digits of a Social Security number will do.

Kus said it is up for the state to verify identification information. The registration application — which can be found online — also requires date of birth, and home address. Signatures on file with the DMV will be used. If there is none, the voter will receive a letter to fix the problem.

“In California, we accept the information that’s provided on the registration record. You are stating under penalty of perjury whether you’re citizen or not. And you also are signing that all the information that you have placed on that registration record is accurate,” Kus said.

Voters can register through Election Day, but must register by Oct. 29 for a vote-by-mail ballot. Online registration concludes Oct. 21. After that date, registration (or re-registration) must be done in person.

Whether voting in person (early or on Election Day), by mail, or through a drop box, all ballots will reach the warehouse to be processed and counted.

Kus practices the Rule of Two.

“We never handle ballots without at least two people. There’s always two people around,” Kus said. “Just for basic basic safety, security and oftentimes we have more. But whenever we’re doing transport of ballots, it’s teams of two.”

Drop Boxes

The county has 67 drop boxes (map here), with a team of two collecting every day and bringing the ballots back to the election warehouse.

The teams place the ballots in what looks like a medium-sized black suitcase, specifically numbered to match the drop box. The case is sealed over the zipper with an identifying tag. Information includes who is picking up the ballots, which box the ballots came from, and how many ballots are collected.

For days — especially closer to Nov. 5 — when there could be thousands of ballots in a box, staff will count them back at the warehouse.

The boxes themselves are strong, made to survive inclement weather, and the occasional car accidentally backing into the metal device. Tampering with the box — even graffiti — is a felony, Kus said.

Collecting the ballots from the remote mountain areas, such as Shaver Lake, can sometimes be a challenge — especially if there is snow.

“That actually did prevent us getting to the Shaver Lake drop box on a single day. And we just worked with the sheriff’s department or with the public works department to get a four-wheel drive. And we drove up with them the next day to get that,” Kus said.

When crews return to the warehouse with physical ballots, the cases are placed inside an enclosed cage area to be opened. Staff double-check the location which box the ballots came from, and how many are arriving.

In-Person Voting

Only one early voting location is currently open — at the main election office on 2221 Kern Street, downtown Fresno. Cast ballots are secured overnight and usually collected in the morning, Kus said.

Ten voting centers throughout Fresno County open on Saturday, Oct. 26 and another 43 on Saturday, Nov. 2. A location map can be found here.

Voters checking in need to provide a signature and address. However, a picture identification is not required in the state (and a new law will ban the practice).

“Impersonation fraud is incredibly rare in in-person voting,” Kus said. He puts the rate at one in a million.

Voters will feed ballots into a machine, which will instantly tabulate the vote. Staff will take the memory card after voting closes on Nov. 5 to process the results at the warehouse.

Staff will collect the physical ballots each night. They will be stored on shelves inside the same caged room where ballots are processed.

Kus said that anyone in line at the close of voting will be allowed to cast a ballot. An election staffer will literally monitor the end of the line, and turn anyone away.

The Woodward Park library traditionally has the largest in-person voting on Election Day. Voting could take place well after 8 p.m.

Early voting started Oct. 7 with all voters receiving a vote-by-mail ballot — which can be returned without any additional postage. Ballots must be postmarked Nov. 5 and received by Nov. 12 to count.

Ballots are collected every morning from the main post office in downtown Fresno by county election officials. Kus said that half the vote-by-mail ballots are returned on Election Day.

Envelope Scanning

After the physical ballots are returned to the warehouse, staff place them in postal trays for digital scanning and signature verification. In another caged area, staff place the ballots through one of three machines that records an image.

“From that picture, it can read the barcode that is on every envelope that identifies the voter (and) the envelope,” Kus said.

The machines can also tell if the envelope is empty, or there is more than one ballot inside. Those ballots are removed from the machine. The county will attempt to notify the voter of the mistake.

Even ballots from other counties are allowed to be returned anywhere. Kus will send those ballots to the appropriate location.

Ballots that remain to be counted wait the shelf. They remain they overnight if necessary.

“Yes, we’re leaving them out, but we’re also finding three levels of security. And then you’ve got cameras in the alarms and other stuff,” Kus said.

Signature Verification

The next step is verifying signatures. Up to six election staff will compare digital images of the signature on the envelope — captured by the scanner — against the signature on file.

“California law requires that we assume every signature on the envelope is the voter’s signature. So in Fresno County, we are looking for clear and obvious mismatch,” Kus said.

Reviewers receive expert training to identify signature issues, Kus said.  Factors include pen weight, directionality, and spacing between letters.

Kus said signatures can change over time.

“We can recognize those sometimes, but we still have to challenge at other times where someone’s manual dexterity has just changed drastically,” Kus said.

Ten seconds examining each signature “is a bit on the long side,” Kus said.

Kus recommends not signing for anyone else, including a spouse, or anyone who may not be able to sign for themselves. Suspicion of forgery will be forwarded to the District Attorney’s office.

For those who cannot sign, the voter can make a mark like an “X,” with a witness also signing the ballot.

Challenged signatures will receive a more comprehensive second level of review. If a problem remains, the elections department will send the voter a “cure” letter, allowing a fix of the signature. The cure deadline is Dec. 1 at 5 p.m.

Opening Envelops and Preparing Ballot

Envelopes with verified signatures move along to another caged room. The county has four machines that open envelopes along two sides. Again, two staffers work on each machine, one feeding ballots into the machine and one to separate the ballot from the envelope.

Each team can open and separate up to 25,000 ballots a day.

Once the ballot is removed from the envelope, there is no way of knowing which ballot belongs to which voter.

“The secrecy of the ballot really kicks in right here,” Kus said.

He asks voters not to sign the ballots themselves. To do so creates a process where a blank ballot is “duplicated” to match a signed ballot’s vote.

A group of volunteers unfold the ballots at a table.

Unfolded ballots next go into a “smashing” machine to help remove any creases. This can take 30 minutes.

Ballots are then placed in a counting machine, and sealed in boxes of 250.

Counting the Ballots

Members of the IT team will then take the boxes — containing the ballots arriving through mail and drop boxes — to a different room for tabulation.

The county has six Canon scanners to record the ballot. Dominion software will read the scanned image to tabulate. The results are stored on servers. They will not be revealed until staff hits the button for a report when the election closes.

The computers are not connected to the internet, so hacking is not a concern.

The scanners will recognize if there is an overvote, undervote, or write-in. A team of two will examine the ballots to adjudicate.

“We take extreme efforts to ensure that no tampering occurs — working in teams of multiple persons, using tamper evident seals on all access points, limiting access via passcodes, card readers, locks, cameras, and separating physical ballots from electronic records,” Kus said.

Shortly after 8 p.m. on Nov. 5, staff will hit a button to release the tabulated numbers to the public.

If there is any integrity concern with a device, the county will re-run all the ballots associated with that device.

After the election, staff will randomly chose ballots to make sure the machines counted them correctly.

What About Recounts?

If there is a recount, or any other reason to examine specific results such as a court order, the county has a way to find those specific ballots. But, it would be labor intensive.

For example, a recount in Race A could be spread across several stored stacks at the warehouse. The county will know which batch to find those ballots. However, those actual ballots must be pulled physically by a human.

That is why the cost for recounts are borne by anyone making the request.

“We trade an inefficiency in the recount process for speed and efficiency in the tabulation process,” Kus said.