The ballot initiative created to replace Fresno County’s Measure C failed the expedited review process needed to send the transportation tax before voters in November.

Too many duplicate signatures in the random sample means the Better Roads Safe Streets ballot initiative will have to undergo a full review of signatures to pass legal scrutiny.

Now, with seven other state propositions needing review, an election underway, and only three months left to get the verifications and approvals needed to put it on the November ballot, qualifying Better Roads Safe Streets would “be tight,” Fresno County Clerk/Registrar of Voters James Kus told GV Wire on Monday afternoon.

The Fresno County Board of Supervisors has to approve any ballot measure seeking to be on the November ballot by Aug. 7. The state allows until Aug. 21, and Kus says he’s doesn’t think it’ll take that long, “but I can’t promise anything.”

“Every computer’s got somebody working at it already for the election or for this petition process, so we can’t really expand more, we don’t have the seats,” Kus said. “We’re already doing overtime primarily for election activities. … It is still possible to make the November ballot, but it’s going to be tight.”

‘Unnecessary Delay Would Result in Loss of Hundreds of Millions’

A Better Roads Safe Streets campaign spokesperson said the group is confident the initiative would qualify in time for the ballot given its accuracy.

“Any unnecessary delay would result in the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars available for repairing our roads and making our streets safer, without raising taxes,” the spokesperson said. “Fresno County’s leadership must meet this moment and give voters the chance to decide in November 2026.”

Random Sample Resulted in 104% Accuracy: Kus

Kus said the quality of signatures given to his office by the Better Roads Safe Streets organization had “the best quality of signatures” of state propositions sent in this year.

The random sample, however, uncovered a high number of duplicate signatures.

Kus said duplicates are not uncommon. Of the eight random samples for propositions they’ve reviewed, five had duplicates.

“It’s actually very difficult to find them ahead of time because they’re just kind of randomly mixed in there,” Kus said.

Kus had told supervisors that given the limited time to qualify an initiative for the ballot, petition gatherers would need 32,000 signatures to qualify for a random sample as opposed to a full review. Ideally, a ballot initiative would need 18 months ahead of time for review.

The 977 signatures reviewed for the random sample only resulted in 104% accuracy compared to the needed 110%. How can a percentage be higher than 100%? As Kus explained it, a multiplier is used for the number of valid signatures. That number needs to exceed the 21,000 minimum to qualify for the ballot.

“In our random sample, it came up just short — we came up at 104.1% as the final number after having a slight adjustment due to duplicates being found,” Kus said.

Failure to Meet the Deadline May Mean 2028 Race

The Better Roads Safe Streets Initiative would create a half-cent sales tax to pay for road repair and mass transit throughout Fresno County. The measure was created to replace Measure C, which expires in June 2027.

Kus said if it does not qualify for the November ballot, it can still qualify for the next statewide election in 2028.

Otherwise, it would take the Fresno County Board of Supervisors to approve a countywide election, which Kus said is very costly.

“For municipalities and districts, the measure gets scheduled for the jurisdiction’s next regularly scheduled election, generally the next November statewide election, but again the special election option is available,” Kus said.