FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – Election season is two weeks away, and Fresno County election officials are already preparing for the big day.

“We’ve had over 40,000 voters already return a ballot, either through vote by mail or coming down to our downtown office to vote in person,” says James Kus.

James Kus, the Fresno County Registrar of Voters, oversees 530,000 registered voters.

He says voter turnout has had a slower start because of the size of the ballot.

“It’s a long ballot,” says Kus. “It’s a two-card ballot, again with 14 state propositions and two county-wide measures, so there is a lot of material to go through.”

But Kus says he expects bigger crowds closer to election day and recommends reading the ballot beforehand.

“A majority of in-person voters will come out; up to 80 to 85% of all in-person voters will come out on election day,” he says. “If you’re planning to vote in person on election day, there will be lines.”

Fresno State University Political Science Professor Thomas Holyoke says he thinks midterm voter turnout could be higher than usual this year, due to voter anger.

“There is really no issue that is more important than the economy,” says Holyoke. “When people are upset about the economy, they take it out on the party in power. And the economy is not good, and I think that might be what’s going to be happening now.”

Kus says election accuracy is taken very seriously, and votes are verified through many different steps.

“We check signatures on every single vote by mail ballot that comes in, and that isn’t just a couple-second process,” Kus says. “We have humans read the ballots and compare that against how the machines have tabulated the ballots. I can proudly say that the machines have been perfect for the last six years.”

Now two weeks away, Kus says the focus changes to in-person voters and helping voters return their mail-in ballots.

“Beginning this Saturday, we open 10 vote centers, where voters can go and vote in person, return their vote by mail, or maybe address a concern.”

There are 54 vote centers and 69 ballot drop boxes in Fresno County.