Election Voting Guide

In California you must be 18 or older on Election Day to register. You can pre-register to vote at 16 or 17 and if you do, you will automatically be registered to vote on your 18th birthday.

Meet the Candidates

In total there are 11 elected candidates for the presidency.

Democrats

• Joe Biden - former Democratic vice president of the United States. He announced that he was running for president on April 25, 2019. Biden framed his campaign as a challenge to President Donald Trump.

• Michael Bloomberg - former three-term New York City mayor, investment banker, philanthropist, and media executive. He filed for several state Democratic primaries, including Alabama, Arkansas, and Texas, before formally announcing his candidacy on November 24, 2019​

• Pete Buttigieg - former is the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana. He announced he was running for the Democratic presidential nomination on January 23, 2019. On April 14, 2019, he formally kicked off his campaign.

• Tulsi Gabbard - a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Hawaii. Gabbard announced that she was running for president of the United States on January 11, 2019.

• Amy Klobuchar - a Democratic member of the U.S. Senate from Minnesota. She formally declared her candidacy on February 10, 2019. Klobuchar announced several policy priorities, including automatic voter registration, reducing the amount of money in politics, and reinstating climate regulations that were eliminated by the Trump administration.

• Bernie Sanders - an independent member of the U.S. Senate from Vermont who caucuses with the Democratic Party. He formally declared his candidacy for president on February 19, 2019. Sanders has focused his campaign on economic issues, including Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, a $15 minimum wage, expanding the estate tax, limiting the size of banks, and tuition-free college. Before serving in the U.S. Senate, Sanders was the mayor of Burlington, Vermont, from 1981 to 1989 and a member of the U.S. House from 1991 to 2007.

• Tom Steyer - an investor, activist, philanthropist, and donor to progressive and Democratic Party causes. He announced on July 9, 2019, that he was running for president of the United States. Steyer founded NextGen Climate, which he rebranded as NextGen America in 2017. According to its official website, the advocacy group is a "diverse coalition of young people, organized to take power by winning elections for progressive candidates."

• Elizabeth Warren - is a Democratic member of the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts. She launched her exploratory presidential committee on December 31, 2018, and formally declared her candidacy on February 9, 2019. Warren has focused her campaign on economic issues, including proposing a wealth tax on the wealthiest 75,000 families to partially fund universal childcare, student loan debt relief, the Green New Deal, and Medicare for All. Warren began serving in the U.S. Senate in 2013. Before that, she helped establish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under the Obama administration.

Republicans

• Roque De La Fuente - filed to run for president in the Republican primary on May 16, 2019. De La Fuente outlined healthcare, immigration, the economy, education, and the environment as key policy areas. He said healthcare policy should be focused on lowering costs, maintaining or improving care, and opening access. Before this campaign, De La Fuente worked in the car dealers industry, finance, and real estate. He previously ran for president in 2016 as the Reform Party candidate.

• Donald Trump - the 45th and current president of the United States. He assumed office on January 20, 2017, and filed to run for re-election on the same day. His re-election campaign has focused on the economy, jobs, immigration, and foreign policy. In his first two years in office, two U.S. Supreme Court justices were confirmed, the United States withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, and Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

• Bill Weld - weld served as the Republican governor of Massachusetts from 1991 to 1997. In 2016, he was the Libertarian vice-presidential candidate. He announced on April 15, 2019, that he was running in the 2020 presidential election. Weld has focused his potential run on criticisms of President Donald Trump's personality and economic policies, saying the president is paying more attention to dividing people than addressing the problem of overspending or preparing to replace jobs that will be lost to automation in the near future.

How and where to vote

Presidential Primary Election

Date is on March, 3 2020, 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Voter Registration

Online or Postmark by February 18, 2020, or you can "conditionally" register and vote at your county elections office after the 15-day voter registration deadline. Vote by Mail

Vote at your polling place

Use the Department's Polling Place and Sample Ballot Lookup Tool or Voter Portal to access your polling place details, including the type of the facility, cross streets, and accessibility information, such as slope at the entrance. The tool connects with Google Maps, allowing you to get door-to-door walking, public transit, bicycling, or driving directions.

Completed Ballots, Including Vote-by-Mail Ballots

Personally delivered ballots: Must be delivered by close of polls on March 3, 2020; Mailed ballots: Must be postmarked on or before March 3, 2020, and received by your county elections office no later than March 6, 2020.