STATE: Secretary of State – 2026 Primary Election

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Secretary of State – Vote for (1)

(LAList) The secretary of state oversees the administration of all federal and state elections in California, including certifying candidates and initiatives for statewide ballots, issuing voter guides and ensuring votes are properly counted. The office also handles corporate business filings, maintains the state archives and manages a database of lobbyist registration and campaign finance disclosures.

Reading List:

ENDORSED Shirley N. Weber (D) – California Secretary of State

RECOMMENDATION: YES! She’s done a good job so far!

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(LAList – See list of Direct Contributions to Candidates) “Weber, the daughter of Arkansas sharecroppers who fled the Jim Crow south, became the first Black secretary of state in California history by appointment in 2021, after serving eight years in the Assembly. She then easily won a full four-year term in 2022. Weber’s had an eventful tenure, overseeing the state’s permanent implementation of universal mail-in voting, administering high-profile elections such as the recall against Gov. Gavin Newsom, taking local governments to court over voting laws and fielding claims of election fraud. She pledged to expand voting access, improve transparency in election filings and enhance cybersecurity protections in a second term.“

CADEM
GOOD clubdem. party of san fernando
Los Angeles dem. Party
California Young Democrats
Planned parenthood
California's Women's listSanta Barbara Women's Political commNATIONAL WOMEN'S CAUCUS
equality CA
Fiona Ma
CA fed. of teachersCA Teachers association
NATIONAL UNION OF HEALTH WORKERS
AFSCME
Southern California District Council

(knock-LA.com) “The secretary of state oversees state and federal elections and manages the corporate filings for businesses, nonprofits, and lobbyists. Given the attacks on free and fair elections by the Trump administration and the Supreme Court, this normally sleepy office becomes an important line of defense. California’s elections are slow to be certified, and our data on lobbyists and campaign finance is hard to navigate.

Weber is endorsed by a broad coalition of labor, activists, and elected officials. Her goals for the coming term include strengthening cybersecurity and expanding voter registration outreach to high school and college students and the formerly incarcerated. She is also a consistent opponent of GOP-led “voter ID” disenfranchisement schemes.”

(cahighways.com) Her Secretary of State bio notes: Shirley Nash Weber, Ph.D., was nominated to serve as California Secretary of State by Governor Gavin Newsom on December 22, 2020 and sworn into office on January 29, 2021. Voters elected her for a full term on November 8, 2022. Dr. Weber is California’s first Black Secretary of State and only the fifth African American to serve as a state constitutional officer in California’s 175-year history. Dr. Weber attended the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where she received her Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctorate degrees by the age of 26. Prior to receiving her Doctorate, she became a professor at San Diego State University (SDSU) at the age of 23. She also taught at California State University at Los Angeles and Los Angeles City College before coming to SDSU. She retired from the Department of Africana Studies after 40 years as a faculty member and serving several terms as department chair. Before her appointment, Dr. Weber served four terms as an Assemblymember representing California’s 79th Assembly District, which includes parts of the City of San Diego as well as several cities and communities in the San Diego region. Dr. Weber also served as a Member and Chair of the San Diego Unified School District and has twice served as a California Elector, including chairing the California College of Presidential Electors on December 14, 2020. She has fought to secure and expand civil rights for all Californians, including restoring voting rights for individuals who have completed their prison term.

Her priorities page indicates that her first priority is to defend voting rights. She wants to fix delayed financial filings in the SOS office, enforce rules equally, and ensure early bipartisan support for being fair and principled. She wants to encourage Californians to Vote: Running and aggressive outreach campaign to every corner of the state to urge Californians to get involved in the electoral process — from registering high school and college students to vote to helping members of the public get involved in our elections. She wants to work with local elections officials to strengthen, protect, and expand access to the ballot; to improve transparency in our elections, lobbyist registration, and campaign finance systems so that every Californian can make an informed decision about what issues, causes or candidates to support; to monitor and upgrade the Secretary of State’s cybersecurity policies to ensure our elections are protected from attempts to undermine our democratic processes; and to revamp the voter education outreach programs for the formerly incarcerated, especially in light of the passage of Proposition 17, which ensured Californians on parole have the right to vote, to ensure all Californians have a voice in upcoming elections.

She has pushed back against GOP attempts to restrict voters rights, and defended the right to voter privacy by refusing the Trump administration’s request for voter rolls (the lawsuit from the administration against her was subsequently dismissed).

She has a large number of endorsements, including unions, Democratic clubs, and elected leaders (although, surprisingly, not Newsom).  She has been endorsed by the SF Chronicle.

The California Secretary of State is an elected state executive officer established by the California Constitution. He or she serves as the state’s chief election officer, keeps the state’s key documents including the constitution and Great Seal, and keeps the state archives. Additionally, the secretary of state registers businesses in the state, commissions notaries public, and manages state ballot initiatives. The secretary of state is elected to four-year terms, concurrent with the other constitutional officers of California, and is restricted to two terms.

Given the shenanigans from the Republican party with elections, this is a vital office for California. I do not want a Trumpian Republican in this office. The current Secretary of State did a great job with the 2020 and 2024 elections. We need a Secretary of State that will vigorously defend the state’s election system from interference from the Trump administration and MAGA attempts to restrict who can vote, who will not put roadblocks or tests in the way of legitimate voters. I want a Secretary of State that will be fair and unbiased regarding the reporting of results. Our election system works in California, and I’m not inclined to change what isn’t broken.

The LA Times has an analysis of the race here.

Gary N. Blenner (G) – Teacher

RECOMMENDATION: No. Why?

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  • Gary N. Blenner
  • Age: 
  • City of residence: 
  • Occupation: elected Trustee of the Center Joint Unified School District
  • Education: –
  • Funding:
  • Instagram: instagram.com/
  • Facebook: facebook.com/
  • Website: https://www.blenner4sos.org
  • blenner4sos@gmail.com
No endorsements

(cahighways.org) Blenner has been an educator, union activist, and active participant in public life. From 2006 to 2010, he served as an elected Trustee of the Center Joint Unified School District, where he worked on budgeting, governance, and public accountability. He also ran for the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors in 2012 and 2016 (the implication being that he wasn’t elected). Those campaigns reinforced his belief that structural flaws in our electoral system, not just individual officeholders, are the greatest barrier to good governance.

Blenner wants to bring in Ranked Choice Voting to all partisan public offices in California. He supports replacing the existing representative structure with four 13-member congressional districts, elected through proportional representation, in place of Proposition 50. He wants to expand the Assembly to 91 members, creating seven 13-member Assembly districts, with proportional representation. He also wants to get special interest money out of politics.

All of these are interesting ideas. None of them, however, are within the authority of the Secretary of State. The Secretary of States administers the elections as directed by the laws of the state. If he wants to write or change the laws, he should become a legislator.

His page says nothing about defending our electoral system against Trump shenanigins. He says nothing about making the system we have work. He says nothing about how he would address the push for SAVE-style voter ID. He misses the point of the position.

Note that Blenner ran for Secretary of State back in 2022. He has no endorsements listed.

Michael Feinstein (G) – Electoral Reform Consultant

RECOMMENDATION: No. Nice site. Not the best candidate for the job.

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  • Michael Feinstein
  • Age: 
  • City of residence: 
  • Occupation: former City Councilmember and Mayor of Santa Monica
  • Education: received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in 1982 from Carleton College in Northfield, MN.
  • Funding:
  • Instagram: instagram.com/
  • Facebook: facebook.com/
  • Website: https://feinstein4sos.org
  • info@feinstein4SOS.org
No endorsements

(cahighways.org) Michael Feinstein is a former City Councilmember and Mayor of Santa Monica. He served on the City Council for two four-year terms between 1996 and 2004, and as Mayor from 2000-2002. He majored in philosophy and received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in 1982 from Carleton College in Northfield, MN.

His positions are similar to Blenner: • Electoral Reform • Ranked Choice Voting • Proportional Representation plan for the California State Legislature Per Capita Representation • Reform of the Recall Election Process • Repeal ‘Top Two’ elections • Democracy Holiday • Problem with Vote Centers, Early Voting • Right to Vote for 16- and 17-year olds. He also wants similar reforms in the Los Angeles City Charter. However, none of this is within the wheelhouse of the Secretary of State.

Some of his issues are within the wheelhouse of the Secretary of State: Having open source code for election systems, performing election audits, and ensuring there is no conflict of interest from the Secretary of State. However, he does not appear to claim that Shirley Weber has had a conflict of interest. With respect to Open Source Software: Despite what the philosophy major says, simply being open source doesn’t ensure the software is secure. Having access to all the source code is important, as well as ensuring it is under strict configuration control. At that point, independent assessment of the source code is required, using a combination of tools (and, today, that would include AI analysis tools such as the new Mystic). You can have secure code that is proprietary, as long as it is all available for review and is independently assessed. He has no endorsements listed.

Donald P. (Don) Wagner (R) – Orange County Supervisor

RECOMMENDATION: No. This guy has the normal MAGA-rabble, PLUS 5-stars from the Election Forum. If you want someone to screw up elections, reduce access to poor, elderly and working people, and cost us more, this is the guy to do it!

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  • Donald P. Wagner
  • Age: 
  • City of residence: 
  • Occupation:
  • Education:
  • Funding:
  • Instagram: instagram.com/
  • Facebook: facebook.com/
  • Website: https://wagnerforcalifornia.com/

Endorsements: https://wagnerforcalifornia.com/


Bruce McPherson
California Secretary of State (Ret.)		Bill Jones
California Secretary of State (Ret.)		Pete Wilson
Former California Governor

Election Forum gave 5 stars to Mr. Wagner! 5 stars means he’s as far right as the scale goes. That is really bad. We don’t know which questionnaire he took, but we know he must have done “well” on the MANHATTAN DECLARATION and the FAMILIES FIRST PLEDGE.

Why do right-wing extremists like Donald? (Robyn Nordell) Don Wagner fully supports the Voter ID initiative and is running for Secretary of State to make sure:

(LAList – See list of Direct Contributions to Candidates) “Wagner, an Orange County supervisor, former mayor of Irvine and ex-state assemblymember, is running on a platform of election integrity. As supervisor, he criticized the state’s COVID-19 response, questioned the county’s investment in diversity, equity and inclusion programs and pushed for the release of sensitive voter information to President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice over claims of voting irregularities. He supports requiring voter ID at the polls and criticizes Weber for the state’s slow ballot-counting process.“ (Note from Indivisible Ventura – this latter bit – “slow ballot counting” is hilarious. They all advocate for hand counting, which is both slow and inaccurate.)

(cahighways.com) Donald P. Wagner (R) Wikipedia notes that Wagner currently serves as a member of the Orange County Board of Supervisors, 3rd district. He is the current board chair. He previously served as mayor of Irvine, California and as a Republican member of the California State Assembly, representing the 68th district, which includes portions of Orange County. Wagner received a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a Juris Doctor in 1987 from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law and was admitted to the California Bar in the same year.

Wagner’s website indicates that he fully supports the Voter ID initiative that just qualified for the ballot. If voters approve it, they would be required to show a government-issued ID each time they go to the polls, while mail-in ballots would need the last-four digits of an ID, such as a driver’s license. The secretary of state and county election offices would also be required to verify voters’ registration each time they vote. Currently, voters only need to provide an ID and Social Security number when they register to vote. Voting rights groups say the initiative will suppress turnout among eligible voters who don’t have the documents on hand, many of whom are disproportionately poor and people of color.

Wagner has also also raised concerns about the time-consuming ballot counting process, particularly how mail-in ballots can take more time with signature matches. His answer seems to be dialing back mail-in ballots. He has said he would roll back the practice of sending universal mail-in ballots to every voter, which the state made permanent during the COVID-19 pandemic, though that would require legislative approval. He said he’d also support legislation to move up the deadline to certify election results. Providing the last 4 digits of an ID without further verification actually increases the risk of fraud. Weber has argued that accuracy is more important than speed: it’s important to count every ballot and that most outcomes are known before she certifies the results anyway.

Wagner’s website says nothing about whether he will stand up to the Trump administration (i.e., would he be sending California voter rolls to DC for verification, which has a bad record of kicking out valid voters, as well as exposing private information). Being Republican, I doubt that he would.

He also wants to streamline small business applications, which seems reasonable.

He has a shitload of endorsements (and here), all Conservative, and driven by his support of Voter ID and the MAGA obsession with election integrity.

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