Cal. ELEC § 20
This is the official text of Cal. ELEC § 20, part of California’s Elections Code — governs how elections are conducted, including voter registration, ballots, and campaign rules.
Not legal advice. This page reproduces the official text of a government statute for reference only. Laws change, and how a statute applies depends on your specific facts. For advice about your situation, consult a licensed attorney in your state.
Official statutory text
(a) A person shall not be considered a candidate for, and is not eligible to be elected to, any state or local elective office if the person has been convicted of a felony involving accepting or giving, or offering to give, any bribe, the embezzlement of public money, extortion or theft of public money, perjury, or conspiracy to commit any of those crimes.
(b) For purposes of this section, “conviction of a felony” includes a conviction of a felony in this state and a conviction under the laws of any other state, the United States, or any foreign government or country of a crime that, if committed in this state, would be a felony, and for which the person has not received a pardon from the Governor of this state, the governor or other officer authorized to grant pardons in another state, the President of the United States, or the officer of the foreign government or country authorized to grant pardons in that foreign jurisdiction.
(b) For purposes of this section, “conviction of a felony” includes a conviction of a felony in this state and a conviction under the laws of any other state, the United States, or any foreign government or country of a crime that, if committed in this state, would be a felony, and for which the person has not received a pardon from the Governor of this state, the governor or other officer authorized to grant pardons in another state, the President of the United States, or the officer of the foreign government or country authorized to grant pardons in that foreign jurisdiction.
Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site
Need a lawyer in California?
Find a California lawyer
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.