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Cal. ELEC § 301

This is the official text of Cal. ELEC § 301, 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 “ballot” is the presentation of the contests consisting of offices and measures, and the candidates and choices to be voted on.

(b) The ballot presentations shall include either of the following:

(1) One or more ballot cards, as defined in Section 302, upon which are printed the names of candidates for each contest and the ballot titles of measures to be voted on by marking the designated area and that are tabulated manually or by optical scanning equipment. The ballot card may include visual graphics and instructions.

(2) An electronic voting system, certified or conditionally approved by the Secretary of State, upon which the names of the candidates for each contest and the ballot titles of measures to be voted on are selected by touching the screen or using other physical controls. The electronic voting system shall print the selections made by the voter, which may be in the form of a list or facsimile of a marked preprinted ballot.

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.