Frequently Asked Questions Endnotes

1. In California, many County Clerks are "non-partisan offices" elected during the gubernatorial primary for terms of 4 years. The last election was March 2002 for the term lasting from January 2003-January 2007, and the next election is June 6, 2006 for the term of January 2007-January 2010. In some counties for which the Clerk/Registrar is elected, the elected individual has retired, resigned or the departments were re-organized, and therefore the current incumbent has been "appointed" and must stand for re-election in June 2006.

2. The counties which appoint a Registrar of Voters, from largest to smallest population (with population rank in state in parentheses) are the following: Los Angeles (1), Orange (2), San Diego (3), San Bernardino (4), Riverside (5), Santa Clara (6), Alameda (7), Sacramento (8), San Francisco (12), San Joaquin (15), Monterey (18), Solano (19), Lake (40). (From CA Dept of Finance county population estimates for Jan 1, 2005 available at http://www.dof.ca.gov/HTML/DEMOGRAP/Rankcities.xls Table 6)