Generally speaking, to register to vote in California, you must be a U.S. citizen, resident of California (certain exceptions apply), 18 years of age or older, and not in prison for a felony. For more details, visit our Register to Vote page.
For many Californians, this is probably the fastest and easiest way to get registered.
This form also works for military/overseas voters.
Paper
You can obtain a standard paper registration form by:
Picking one up at our office (435 Fiscal Dr. in Santa Rosa), any Department of Motor Vehicles field office, post office, public library, city/town hall, or a number of other government offices.
Look yourself up in the California Secretary of State’s My Voter Status online database. It shows detailed information about your registration and is nearly updated in near real time. However, you have to enter several pieces of personal information that match exactly with how you registered, including your first name, last name, birthdate, California driver license/ID number, and last four digits of your Social Security Number.
Look yourself up in Sonoma County’s Voter Registration database. It shows more limited voter information and is only updated intermittently but it only requires you to enter your birthdate and the last four digits of either your (1) California driver license/ID number or (2) Social Security Number.
You have to fill out a brand-new voter registration form. There isn't currently a form or process that allows you to "update" your existing voter file with a different residence address, name, or political party.
Yes. Just call our office at (707) 565-6800 or email us at rov-info@sonoma-county.org and let us know your current mailing address so we send your Vote-by-Mail ballot to the right location. Alternatively, you can re-register wherever you are living while going to school and vote there. Courts have ruled that the decision is yours.
No. California has Conditional Voter Registration, a.k.a. “same-day registration,” which allows individuals who are otherwise eligible to register and cast a ballot after the standard registration deadline. These "conditional ballots" are counted after Election Day once the voter's eligibility to register has been verified and it has been confirmed they did not cast a ballot anywhere else in California.
Conditional registration is available anytime after the 15-day registration deadline through 8:00 p.m. on Election Day. It typically requires a voter to come to our office or any Vote Center in person. In addition, the voter must vote the ballot they receive on site; they cannot take it with them. However, California Senate Bill 504, which was signed into law in spring of 2022, allows some limited exceptions to this rule for military/overseas voters and voters with disabilities. Call us at (707) 565-6800 or email us at rov-info@sonoma-county.org for further details.
The only elections where your political party impacts your ballot are Presidential Primary elections. In all other elections, every voter in the same precinct gets the exact same ballot, no matter what their political party is.
Moreover, even in Presidential Primary elections, there are only two contests that are impacted by a voter's party: United States President and County Party Central Committee (note that most County Party Central Committee contests don't go to election, so you may have never seen them before). Every other contest on Presidential Primary ballots (United States Senator, United States Representative, State Senator, Member of the State Assembly, County Supervisor, etc.) will have exactly the same set of candidates, regardless of your political party.
No. You should select "No Party/None" (see examples from paper and online registration forms below). The American Independent Party is a political party. It has a chairperson, holds conventions, endorses candidates, etc. – just like the Democratic Party, Republican Party, Green Party, etc.
Some people see the word "Independent" when they're filling out the registration form and assume it means "not affiliated with any political party." This is understandable because that is often how the word is commonly used. However, in California, the technical term used to describe voters who do not affiliate with any political party is "No Party Preference," not "Independent." For more information, refer to the Political Parties section of our website.
You can enter your address in our Precinct & District Lookup and it will give you a list of all the major federal, state, county, municipal, school, and special districts you reside in, as well as who your elected officials are. You can also call us (707) 565-6800 or email rov-info@sonoma-county.org.
Note that some of your districts may have changed in 2022 due to redistricting based on 2020 census data.
Not in Sonoma County. Non-citizens are already prohibited from voting in all federal elections and state elections. While there are a very small number of local jurisdictions in the United States that have chosen to allow non-citizens to vote in their elections (such as the San Francisco Unified School District), there are no such jurisdictions in Sonoma County.
We may not have your current residence address and/or mailing address on file. If your mail is being forwarded, the post office will not forward ballots and most other election materials. To check to see that we have your correct residence address and/or mailing address on file, you can look yourself up at the California Secretary of State’s My Voter Status page. You can also call us at (707) 565-6800 or email us at rov-info@sonoma-county.org.
California Assembly Bill 37, passed and signed into law in the fall of 2021, requires that all active, registered voters be sent a ballot in the mail in all elections moving forward. However, you do not have to vote the ballot that was mailed to you and can instead vote in person at any Vote Center. For a complete list of Vote Centers available for the current/upcoming election and dates/times they are open, visit our Where to Vote page and/or map.
If Election Day is seven or more days away, You can call us at (707) 565-6800 or email us at rov-info@sonoma-county.org and request we mail you a replacement ballot (if Election Day is six or fewer days away, there is not enough time for us to mail you a replacement ballot).
If Election Day is ten or fewer days away, you can go to a Vote Center and either (1) request a replacement ballot or (2) vote in person. For a complete list of Vote Centers available for the current/upcoming election and dates/times they are open, visit our Where to Vote page and/or map.
Please note that whenever a second ballot is issued any prior ballots that were issued are automatically voided.
You must get a replacement blue envelope (or a completley brand-new replacement ballot) and fill it out in order for your ballot to count. You can pick up a replacement blue envelope at our office or at any Vote Center. For a complete list of Vote Centers available for the current/upcoming election and dates/times they are open, visit our Where to Vote page and/or map.
Yes. Probably the easiest way is to sign up for California's official ballot tracking service called Ballottrax, which sends out automatic ballot status update alerts by email, text, or voicemail. You can also see the status of your ballot by looking yourself up at the California Secretary of State’s My Voter Status page. Or, just call us at (707) 565-6800 or email us at rov-info@sonoma-county.org.
Yes, as long as it is postmarked on or before Election Day and we receive it at our office via USPS or a bona fide private mail delivery company no later than seven days after Election Day.
If you are mailing the ballot domestically, this is usually plenty of time even if you mail out the ballot on Election Day itself. However, if it is afternoon or later on Election Day, if possible it's probably safest to drop the ballot off at an Official Ballot Drop Box or Vote Center to avoid any chance of the ballot being postmarked late.
For a complete list of Official Ballot Drop Boxes and Vote Centers and dates/times they are open for the current/upcoming election, visit our Where to Vote page and/or map.
Important: Do not forget to sign and date the blue return envelope!
Absolutely not. All valid Vote-by-Mail ballots are counted. Because voters are cautioned that Vote-by-Mail ballots returned on Election Day will not be included in Election Night results, this has been misunderstood to mean that they are not counted at all. This rumor is likely due to a misunderstanding of how Vote-by Mail-ballots are processed.
Counting Vote-by-Mail ballots involves several steps:
Verifying the signature on the outside of the blue envelope is valid when compared to the voter's signature(s) we have on file.
Extracting the ballots from the blue return envelopes.
Unfolding the ballots and inspecting them for any damage that might disrupt our ballot scanning equipment (coffee/food stains, tears, bent corners, etc.).
Scanning the ballots.
For Vote-by-Mail ballots that we receive on Election Day itself and the day prior, there is often simply not enough time to complete all these steps on Election Night. It can take a week for those Vote-by-Mail ballots to be included in the official election results tally, and even longer for Vote-by-Mail ballots that arrive after Election Day (but which were postmarked on or before Election Day).
In other words -- if you want your Vote-by-Mail ballot to be included in the results reported on Election Night, GET IT IN EARLY!
With Sonoma County’s transition to the Voter’s Choice Act election model in 2022, voters who want to vote in person can now do so at Vote Centers. Vote Centers are similar to traditional polling places except there are fewer of them and they provide much greater flexibility for in-person voting in the following two ways:
They are open daily up to ten days prior to Election Day (as well as on Election Day itself), including weekends and holidays. In contrast, polling places were only open on Election Day itself.
Voters can vote regularly at any Vote Center they choose; they are not assigned to a specific polling place.
To find a Vote Center for the current/upcoming election and dates/times it is open:
If it is 6 weeks or less before an election, there should be a link to a list and of Vote Centers and the dates/times they are open on our homepage
Check the ballot instructions insert included with your Vote-By-Mail ballot
Yes. If you still have the Vote-by-Mail ballot that was sent to you, you can just vote that ballot, sign the blue return envelope, and either:
Mail it. Warning: Vote-by-Mail ballots returned in the mail must be postmarked on or before Election Day in order to be counted. As a result, if it's later on Election Day, it's probably better to have someone drop off your ballot in person (see second option)
Have somebody else drop off your ballot at an Official Ballot Drop Box or Vote Center
A provisional ballot is provided when an individual is voting in person but the poll worker or election worker cannot immediately verify the person’s eligibility to vote. For example, maybe the poll worker cannot find the voter in the registration database because they are under a different name or residence address. Or maybe the voter thought they were registered but they're not.
In cases like this, the person is required to fill out their current information on the front of a pink provisional ballot envelope before they are allowed to cast a ballot. All provisional ballots are then set aside and not counted on Election Night. Over the next couple weeks, staff at the Registrar of Voters Office will research the person’s eligibility to vote and make sure they have not already voted by mail or voted at another location (another Vote Center, another county, etc.).
Finally, if everything checks out, the voter's information entered/updated and their ballot is counted.
"Top Two" refers to California’s Top Two Candidates Open Primary Act that took effect in 2011. This Act fundamentally changed how primary elections were run in California
Before Top Two, a voter who was registered with a qualified political party got a primary ballot that only listed candidates from their own party for most federal and state offices. Since Top Two, a voter registered with a qualified political party gets a primary ballot that lists all candidates (regardless of party) for most federal and state offices. The two candidates who get the most votes in each contest then move on to the general election. The only two offices that remain partisan are President and Central Committee.
No. The purpose of the presidential contest in a primary election is for each qualified political party to choose who they want to be their party's nominee in the upcoming general election. Voters registered with a qualified political party will receive a list of presidential candidates from their party only, not a list of all candidates from all parties (as is the case for most other federal and state offices).
Yes. A voter not registered with a qualified political party will always still get a ballot. In fact, in non-presidential primaries, their ballot will be exactly the same as any other voter's. In presidential primaries, their ballot will be the same except that it will be missing any central committee offices and might be missing the presidential contest (if the voter hasn't requested a crossover ballot -- see below).
Qualified write-in candidates can definitely still run in a Top Two primary. Then, if they come in first or second place, they will automatically appear on the ballot in the general election (meaning they will no longer technically be write-ins). However, write-in candidates cannot run in a Top Two general election.
Ranked Choice Voting is a voting method where voters "rank" their candidate choices in order of preference rather than voting for a single candidate. If no candidate wins a majority of the vote after the first count, the one with the fewest votes is eliminated and that candidate's votes are redistributed to the remaining candidates until a candidate wins a majority of the vote. In California, it is only used in municipalities that have approved this method of voting. There is no jurisdiction in Sonoma County that currently uses Ranked Choice Voting.
You can find out general information about campaign contributions at our Campaign Finance page. Additional official government resources include the following:
Sonoma County NetFile Database: Search for campaign finance forms related to local (county, school, and special district) candidates and measures.
Examples: Who contributed to Supervisor A's campaign? How much money did Organization B spend opposing Measure C?
Cal-Access: Search for amount of money raised and spent by state candidates and propositions.
Examples: Who contributed to State Senator D's campaign? How much money did Organization E spend opposing Proposition 1?
Possibly. As required by state law, our office sells voter registration data to individuals/organizations who request it and meet the qualifications to do so. But there are innumerable other ways political campaigns also obtain voters’ contact information.
Just be aware that campaigns may still have your phone number from prior voter lists and countless other means. The truth of the matter is that even households with no registered voters receive calls, mail, etc. from campaigns.
Candidate qualifications and requirements are specific to the office being sought. The Registrar of Voters Office has limited information regarding local candidate filing processes at our Candidate Filing page. For information about filing for a state or federal office, visit the California Secretary of State Candidate Information page.
In general, campaign committee treasurers are responsible for establishing and maintaining a record-keeping system to ensure that contributions and expenditures are recorded in compliance with legal requirements. Campaign finance laws dictate which forms must be filed and which filing deadlines apply. To obtain more information about the specific disclosure and filing requirements for your campaign committee, refer to our Campaign Finance page and/or the California Fair Political Practices Commission site.
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