Citizens for Better Government

Anyone distributing voter registration cards in California should be familiar with the rules and regulations for conducting voter registration drives.

Anyone requesting more than 50 voter registration cards from the Secretary of State must complete and submit a Statement of Distribution Form and a plan of distribution to the Secretary of State via mail or fax to:

• California Secretary of State
• Elections Division
• 1500 11th Street, 5th Floor
• Sacramento, CA 95814
• Fax: (916) 653-3214

The Secretary of State’s Elections Division will process the request within 48 hours of receiving the form. For additional assistance, please contact the Secretary of State’s Elections Division at (916) 657-2166.

Voting for the First Time

When you registered to vote, you were asked to provide your driver license number, California identification number, or the last four digits of your Social Security number. If you are a first-time voter in a federal election and you did not provide this information when you registered, and you plan to:

Vote by mail: prior to voting your ballot, send a photocopy of your personal identification to your county elections official. If you do not do this prior to voting, you will be contacted by your county elections official upon receipt of your voted ballot to request the required proof of identity. You must provide an acceptable form of identification to your county elections official before they can open your vote-by-mail ballot return envelope. If your identity cannot be verified, your vote-by-mail ballot return envelope will not be opened and your ballot will not be counted.

Vote in person: prior to receiving your ballot at your polling location, you may be asked to provide an acceptable form of identification.

Examples of acceptable forms of personal identification are as follows: a copy of a recent utility bill, the county Voter Information Guide you received from your county elections office or another document sent to you by a government agency, or a copy of your passport, driver license, California identification card, or student identification card.  For more information on the type of identification to use when you vote for the first time, review the complete list of acceptable forms of identification (PDF), call the Secretary of State’s toll-free voter hotline at (800) 345-VOTE (8683), or contact your county elections official.

Official page  https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/where-and-how

Frequently asked questions  Click here to view

Voter Hotlines

• (800) 345-VOTE (8683) – English
• (800) 232-VOTA (8682) – español / Spanish
• (800) 339-2857 – 中文 / Chinese
• (888) 345-2692 – हिन्दी / Hindi
• (800) 339-2865 – 日本語 / Japanese
• (888) 345-4917 – ខ្មែរ / Khmer
• (866) 575-1558 – 한국어 / Korean
• (800) 339-2957 – Tagalog
• (855) 345-3933 – ภาษาไทย / Thai
• (800) 339-8163 – Việt ngữ / Vietnamese
• 711 – TTY/TDD

Polling Place Accessibility Guidelines  Click here to view

These Polling Place Accessibility Guidelines were designed with the California Department of Rehabilitation to help elections officials ensure that polling places are accessible to voters with disabilities to the extent possible.

It is important to note that these Guidelines do not make new law or impose new polling place accessibility requirements on county elections officials. Rather, they are a compilation of laws and regulations that county elections officials are required to adhere to, regardless of the existence of the Guidelines. Throughout the sections below, specific code citations are provided where the Guidelines require a specific action, so the underlying regulatory mandate can easily be found. In some cases, the mandates identified are new to the Guidelines, but are not necessarily new to the law.

If you have questions about the Guidelines, please send them to hava@sos.ca.gov or contact the Secretary of State’s Elections Division at (916) 657-2166.