{"id":91261,"date":"2025-12-12T04:36:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T04:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/91261\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T04:36:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T04:36:09","slug":"karbassi-drops-bid-for-elections-chief-vows-oversight-as-he-campaigns-for-board-of-supervisors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/91261\/","title":{"rendered":"Karbassi drops bid for elections chief, vows oversight as he campaigns for Board of Supervisors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) &#8212; Fresno City Council President Mike Karbassi has dropped his bid to be the county&#8217;s elections chief to instead run for the Fresno County Board of Supervisors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;Right now, I manage a district with 75,000 people,&#8221; Karbassi told Action News. &#8220;I&#8217;m prepared to manage a district with 200,000 people.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Karbassi joins a crowded field vying to represent District 1. The incumbent, Brian Pacheco, is leaving his seat to run for the State Assembly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Karbassi now wants to represent Kerman, Mendota, and Firebaugh.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;I&#8217;ve met the mayors of the different cities, and I know the issues facing them in each of their communities,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">But just weeks ago, Karbassi began campaigning to replace Fresno County Clerk and Registrar of Voters James Kus over claims of &#8220;zombie ballots.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">RELATED: <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/abc30.com\/post\/mike-karbassi-makes-accusations-county-clerk-opponent-james-kus\/18082976\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mike Karbassi makes accusations against county clerk opponent James Kus<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;There are folks out there who reported receiving duplicate ballots. Not just one or two, but even more,&#8221; Karbassi said at a press conference in late October. &#8220;All preventable by proper voter roll management, which is something that hasn&#8217;t happened in the past six years.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Action News pressed Karbassi on Thursday. &#8220;If you believe what you said then, and you say you still believe it now, why not keep running for that race where you could oversee (elections) day-to-day?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;I can also, in addition to fixing elections in this county, I can continue to deal with the issues of infrastructure, issues of traffic safety,&#8221; Karbassi said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">He vows oversight of Kus, who responded to Karbassi&#8217;s new campaign hours later.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;Looking at the Board of Supervisors, also a legislative position, I think that&#8217;s a position that may fit Mr. Karbassi a little better than a department head position like county clerk,&#8221; Kus said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The back-and-forth is likely to continue.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;If you are elected to be a supervisor, would you have communication with him or whoever the leader of that office is?&#8221; Action News asked Karbassi.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;I&#8217;ll tell you this, if he wants his budget approved, he&#8217;s going to have to answer questions, and I&#8217;m going to be asking questions,&#8221; Karbassi said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Kus is not backing down.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;If Mike Karbassi is elected as the supervisor for supervisor area one, we&#8217;re going to be very happy to work with him and answer his questions,&#8221; Kus said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">The primary election for the two races is still nearly six months away.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2025 KFSN-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) &#8212; Fresno City Council President Mike Karbassi has dropped his bid to be the county&#8217;s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[50509,112,114,113,50507,294,50508],"class_list":["post-91261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-50509","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news","tag-karbassi-drops-bid-for-elections-chief","tag-timely","tag-vows-oversight-as-he-campaigns-for-board-of-supervisors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}