Note: this post will be periodically updated! (10/26/2026)
VOTER GUIDE – QUICK LINKS:
- ENGLISH: Quick Voting Guide
- ESPAÑOL: Guía rápida de votación
- FEDERAL LEGISLATORS: 24th Congressional Dist. * 26th Congressional Dist. * 32nd Congressional Dist.
- STATE LEGISLATORS: Assembly, 38th Dist. * Assembly, 42nd Dist. * Assembly, 46th Dist.
- STATE OFFICES: Governor * Lt. Governor * Secretary of State * Controller * Treasurer * Attorney General * Insurance Commissioner * State Board of Equalization * Superintendent of Public Instruction
- JUDICIAL: Judicial Offices
- COUNTY EDUCATION: Superintendent of Schools * Ventura County Board of Education Trustees (* Ventura County Community College District Trustees *
- CITY SCHOOL DISTRICTS: Fillmore USD * Las Virgenes USD * Moorpark USD * Oxnard USD * Pleasant Valley School District * Rio School District * Santa Paula USD * Simi Valley USD * Ventura USD
- CITY COUNCILS: Camarillo * Moorpark * Ojai * Oxnard * Port Hueneme * Santa Paula * Simi Valley * Thousand Oaks * Ventura
- SPECIAL DISTRICTS: Antelope Valley -East Kern Water Agency * Bell Canyon Community Service Dist. * Camarillo Health Care District * Conejo Rec. & Park District * Fillmore-Piru Memorial District * Oxnard Harbor District * Pleasant Valley Rec. & Park District * Rancho Simi Rec. & Park District * Santa Clarita Valley Water Agency * United Water Conservation District
- PROPOSITIONS: TLDR * Prop. 1 * Prop. 2 * Prop. 3 * Prop. 4 * Prop. 5 * Prop. 37 * Prop. 38 * Prop. 39 * Prop. 40 * Prop. 41 * Prop. 42 * Prop. 43 * Prop. 44 * Prop. 45
- LOCAL MEASURES: Measures
- VOTING:
- ESPAÑOL – LAS PROPUESTAS: tinyurl.com/las-propuestas-vc
- ESPAÑOL – MEDIDAS LOCALES: https://indivisibleventura.org/medidas-locales/
“Too-Long-Didn’t-Read” (TLDR) Voter Guide
WHY WE DO THIS GUIDE:
We‘ve created these voter guides since Trump’s first election because we realized that filling out our ballots from top to bottom wasn’t as easy as we thought. Democratic groups sometimes leave big-ticket offices off their voter slates because their membership couldn’t reach a 60% consensus. Many small and non-partisan office don’t make the cut either. So, we decided to make our own “slate” for every election. Here are some other lessons we’ve learned since 2018:
- There are no unimportant offices: Various right-wing organizations encourage their people to run for city councils and school boards, to get name recognition to use as a launching pad for higher offices. Indivisible Conejo had to spend part of Trump’s first term ridding their school board of these people. So we started our guide to not only to research headliner candidates and propositions, but also to fill in the neglected back corners of our ballots, like judges and water boards.
- We are not telling you how to vote! We are telling you how WE would vote based on our research (which is ongoing). Disagree with a selection? Our guide is stuffed with information to help you make your own decisions – each office in the guide below has a link to additional pages.
- “ENDORSED” – These are our favorites and/or strongest choices
- “BEST PICK” – Sometimes there are no clear frontrunners, or there may be only GOP candidates involved. In that case, we picked the candidate with the most experience and/or respect from the people we know and trust.
- Message to candidates: Sweet jeezus, you are running for a public office, not putting your name in a lottery bowl. Yes, we need to know who you are, and who else besides your mom thinks you’re capable of doing the job!
- There are no perfect candidates!: Non-voters were the largest group in the last presidential election and whatever they were trying to communicate by their non-participation, what we ended up with was a Christo-fascist kleptocracy. So this time, we urge everyone to vote for the best IMPERFECT option to protect our environment, our schools, our civil rights and the people who’ve been endangered. This is the bare minimum necessary to keep our democracy running for when a truly inspirational voice comes to the fore. We can no longer assume that it will without us doing the work.
Whoever gets elected – then we hold them accountable. Put their contact information in your phone. - Need more inspiration? – Read dravonrangel’s posts below!
| This are our list of “ENDORSED” and “BEST PICK” choices for filling out your ballot, top to bottom. (New information can cause revisions!) |
| STATE OFFICES |
| – Governor: Xavier Becerra (D) – Lieutenant Governor: Fiona Ma (D) – Secretary of State: Shirley Weber (D) – Controller: Malia Cohen (D) – Treasurer: Eleni Kounalakis (D) – Attorney General: Rob Bonta (D) – Insurance Commissioner: Jane Kim (D) – Board of Equalization, District 2: Sally Lieber (D) |
| U.S. REPRESENTATIVES |
| – Congressional District 24: Salud Carbajal (D) – Congressional District 26: Jacqui Irwin (D) – Congressional District 32: Brad Sherman (D) |
| CA STATE ASSEMBLY |
| – Assembly District 38: Steve Bennett (D) – Assembly District 42: Deborah Klein Lopez (D) – Assembly District 46: Jesse Gabriel (D) |
| JUDICIAL OFFICES |
| – YES on all except Yegan. (See notes on our page on Judicial candidates!) |
| NON PARTISAN OFFICES – SCHOOL |
| – State Superintendent of Public Instruction: Richard Barrera – County Superintendent of Schools (Non-partisan): Karen Sher – Ventura County Board of Education Trustees – Area 2: McIntyre-Sciarrino – Area 4: Kristina Pine – Ventura County Community College Board Trustees: – Area 2: Bowerman – Area 5: Torres – Kern County Board of Education Trustees: Area 7: Adams |
| SCHOOL DISTRICT – TRUSTEES | CITY COUNCILMEMBERS | SPECIAL DISTRICTS |
| – Fillmore USD: Area 2: Andrade – Las Virgenes USD (Vote for 3): – Cutbill – Pope – Edwardsen – Moorpark USD: Area 1: Clunen – Oxnard USD: – Area 2: Duron – Area 3: Cahue – Area 5: Gonzales – Pleasant Valley School District – Area 1: Ruiz – Area 2: Rust – Area 3: Cramer – Rio School District – Area 1: Omar – Area 3: Martin – Area 4: Spates – Santa Paula USD – Dist. 5: Estrada – Simi Valley USD – Area D: Pietrolungo – Area E: Rosuck – Ventura USD – Area 4: Thompson – Area 5: LaFave | – Camarillo – Dist. 1: Tennessen – Dist. 2: Santagelo – Dist. 5: Martinez-Bravo – Moorpark – Mayor: Enegren is unopposed – Dist. 1: Delgado – Dist. 3: Means is unopposed – Ojai – Mayor: Gilman is unopposed – Dist. 1: Rule – Dist. 2: Lang – Oxnard – Dist. 1: Perello – Dist. 2: Teran – Dist. 5: Basua – Port Hueneme (Vote for 3!) – McQueen-Legohn – Hernandez – Importante – Santa Paula – Dist. 2: Crosswhite – Dist. 3: Chavez – Dist. 4: Grass – Simi Valley – Mayor: Jubran – Dist. 1: Ayala – Dist. 2: Cohen – Dist. 4: Gray – Thousand Oaks – Dist. 1: Arreola – Dist. 2: Rohrbach – Dist. 3: Newman – Ventura – Dist. 1: Campos – Dist. 4: Sanchez-Palacios – Dist. 5: McReynolds – Dist. 6: Eckley | – Antelope Valley – East Kern Water Agency – Division 1: Drew Mercy – Bell Canyon Community Service Dist. (Vote for 2): – Perelman – Balin – Camarillo Health Care District – Zone 1: Roberts – Zone 4: Flood – Zone 5: O’Neill Hernandez – Conejo Recreation & Park District – Dist. 4: Buss – Fillmore-Piru Memorial District (Vote for 2): – Forsythe – Fourage – Oxnard Harbor District (Vote for 3): – Rooney – Hodge – Herrera – Pleasant Valley Recreation & Park District – Smith – Rancho Simi Recreation & Park District – Div. 1: Dennert – Div. 2: Smollen – Santa Clarita Valley Water Agency (Vote for 2) – Div. 3: Plambeck – Div. 3: Gutzeit – United Water Conservation District – Dist. 1: Kimball |
See “I’m ready to do more than vote” at the bottom of this page!
Indivisible Ventura thanks the many community members, officials and these organizations for their assistance in creating this guide.
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For people who didn’t vote in 2024, or are feeling disheartened and not intending to vote this time, please listen to her.
Everything she says is why we asked people to vote in 2024 for those who couldn’t vote, or were in too small a number to protect themselves from deranged MAGA witch-hunts.
“Am I the only one whose heart completely breaks knowing that half of America voted for this shit and and the people who didn’t vote at all, also voted for this. Also the people who voted third party – they also voted for this.
Am I the only one completely heartbroken that it didn’t need to be like this. We didn’t have endure all this. Kamala’s slogan was “We are not going back.” but, baby, we went so far back, I’m talking “Jim Crow 2026.” They are lynching us, they are killing us. We were talking about free Palestine, free Congo, free Sudan. Free us now!
Because how are we going to fight for them when now we’re suffering at the weight of those who didn’t know better. You gotta stategically dismantle the system that has been fucking you for so long. You gotta go about it in the right way. And we failed an open book test. Open book! We had every opportunity to take a step in the right direction to dismantling this government, this system.
Being morally right in your own mind means very little if your strategy leaves the most dangerous people with more power. That is far left and the far right can meet at absolute self-righteousness, political purity and the inability to hold complexity. And this is why we’re here suffering under the weight of the collective ignorance. Too many people will confuse political purity with political strategy. You cannot dismantle a system you refuse to understand, and you cannot strategically fuck a system that has been fucking people since its founding by surrendering your political power. And now we are learning the hardest lesson. Individual self-righteousness can create collective suffering.”
More here from the poster above : “Dismantling a system is not pretending you can escape it overnight. It is understanding the system well enough to know where its power lives, then organizing relentlessly to take that power back.
The part that sickens me is that we did not have to be here. Had the election gone differently, this administration would not be in power. These exact people would not be holding these exact levers of federal power, implementing these exact policies and making these exact decisions. Would America suddenly have been liberated? No. Would injustice have disappeared? Absolutely not. I would still be protesting. Still demanding justice for Palestinians. Still fighting racism, patriarchy corporate greed and every system that dehumanizes people. But it still would have been imperfect’ is not the same as ‘we would be living through the exact same consequences. We wouldn’t. And that distinction matters. It sickens me because harm reduction was never the destination. It was about keeping as many people as possible alive protected and empowered long enough to keep fighting toward the destination.
We have to stop confusing neither option would have liberated us’ with ‘both outcomes would have harmed us in exactly the same way.’ Those are not the same truth.
The reality is, that if you didn’t vote or voted third party, you voted for the hell we are currently living in and that’s so unfortunate because it did not have to be like this. We failed an open book test.
And if you voted for Trump, smh I have absolutely no words for the level of pure evil you aligned yourself with.”
I’m ready to do more than just vote! – Register to become a Neighborhood Poll Protector with Epic 805!
We all know that this isn’t a normal election…
We know that our own president is threatening to subvert our elections. We have no idea how far he will go, but he’s already started an ICE surge on the central coast to frighten some of our neighbors from exercising their right to vote as American citizens.
(More on this below the graphic.)
If you were wondering what you could do besides voting early to protect our democracy, here it is.
Join a movement that’s happening across California!
Our county needs over a hundred volunteers to watch the polls in their communities, Poll protectors will safely document and report incidents to legal experts, and make sure every voter knows their rights to cast a ballot without fear or intimidation.
Sign up for one of (5) 90-minute training session to learn how you can look out for your neighbors, your block, and your local polling place. Spanish interpretation is available.
(tinyurl.com/cipc-training)
– Monday, Oct. 19 (6pm)
-,Monday, Oct. 26 (6pm)
(tinyurl.com/Train-for-CA)
– Wednesday Oct, 14 (6pm)
– Wednesday Oct, 21 (6pm)
– Saturday, Oct. 24 (10 am)
Why is this important for us all to pitch in?
If you haven’t read it yet, this article from the Santa Barbara Independent discusses the surge in ICE operations here on the central coast.
“According to a report published by the Washington Examiner, the ICE activity across the region is believed to be part of a 45-day surge known internally as “Operation Safe California.” Government sources revealed to the Examiner that ICE officers have allegedly been told to arrest all undocumented immigrants they encounter, regardless of criminal history.
Governor Gavin Newsom issued a statement in response to the alleged operation, saying that “Donald Trump is using fear and panic as a weapon, putting families at risk, undermining our economy.”
Gubernatorial Candidate Xavier Becerra issued a similar response, saying the 45-day ICE sweep across California is “timed right up to the midterms, targeting people with no criminal history.”
“Donald Trump is trying to rig the November election by intimidating voters and suppressing the vote,” Becerra continued. “Vote by mail before November 3rd, and send him and his MAGA candidates a message that California won’t be intimidated by his threats and thugs.”
For your friends in SLO or SB County, please have them go here.
- SLO County: https://mobilize.us/s/Mi7Ylg
- SB County: https://mobilize.us/s/eZ82YM
Beware of all those glossy slate mailers telling you how to vote!
(calmatters) “There’s nothing illegal about selling endorsement space on a postcard. California law requires that mailers include a “notice to voters,” specifying that the mailer group is “NOT AN OFFICIAL POLITICAL PARTY” (yes, in all caps).
- Another required disclosure: Candidates and causes that paid for their mailer spot must be listed with an asterisk.
- What isn’t required: revealing the funders behind the mailer “committee.”
Behind-the-Scenes of Elections: Short Film Screening and Panel with League of Women Voters
Those who’ve never worked as a poll worker, poll inspector, or election official are fertile soil for outrageous false claims disparaging the security of our elections. By the way, CA uses the gold standard of paper ballots.
This short documentary offers a behind-the-scenes look at a politically (Click on the link, and put in this password – NgT8PAd%) diverse group of election officials who, despite facing increased threats, harassment and intimidation, remain committed to serving their communities by running secure elections and ensuring every eligible vote is counted accurately. Following the film is a panel and Q&A with the filmmakers and the League of Women Voters.