Cal. ELEC § 15551

This is the official text of Cal. ELEC § 15551, part of California’s Elections Code — governs how elections are conducted, including voter registration, ballots, and campaign rules.

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Official statutory text

(a) If a contest or any such criminal prosecution has been commenced before the date fixed for its destruction, the package containing the voted ballots shall be subject to the order of the court in which the contest or criminal prosecution is pending and shall not be destroyed until after final determination of the contest or criminal prosecution.

(b) In the case of a congressional election contest, the elections official shall hold the ballots of that congressional district in custody subject to the inspection of any committee of the House of Representatives having in charge the investigation of the contest, until the final determination of the contest by the House of Representatives.

(c) In the case of a contest in the State Legislature, the elections official shall hold the ballots of the Senate or Assembly district in custody subject to the inspection of any committee of the Senate or Assembly having in charge the investigation of the contest until the final determination of the contest or the final adjournment of the session of the Legislature in which the contest is filed, whichever is the later.

(d) In no event shall the package or its contents be taken from the custody of the elections official.

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.