Elections are supposed to be orderly affairs. But order — at least when it comes to names — isn’t what you’ll find on California ballots.

State law requires an annual random drawing to determine the order in which candidates will be listed on ballots, including the upcoming Nov. 3 general election.

As a result, candidates whose last names start with “A” don’t necessarily appear first in a list of choices for an elected office.

It’s a practice in place since 1975 “in response to court rulings declaring that standard alphabetical order or incumbent-first was unconstitutional,” according to an explainer on the California Secretary of State’s website.

The secretary of state, which oversees state elections, conducts a random alphabetized drawing on the 82nd day before an election to determine the order of names on a ballot.

The drawing for this year’s general election fell on Aug. 13. “H” won the top spot, with “U” coming in 26th and last.

For statewide offices — governor and attorney general, for example — the order of names differs depending on the state Assembly district in which a voter lives. This is meant to give each statewide candidate a chance to appear at the top of the ballot.

Does the order of candidates’ names matter?

It might, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Election Lab

Appearing first on the ballot in 2000 “increased George W. Bush’s vote share by almost 10 percentage points relative to appearing last,” read an analysis on the lab’s website.

In another case, researchers found that candidates for city council and school board in California whose names appeared first “win between four and five percent more than they might be expected to if they were listed later on the ballot,” the analysis added.

The analysis also cited researchers who cautioned against reading too much into the order of candidates’ names.

“Some have pointed out that the vast majority of studies concerning ballot order effects concentrate on the effect of being first, and ignore the implications of most other ballot positions.”

“This leaves open the possibility that, while the difference between being listed first and being listed last may be large, the difference between being listed first and being listed second may be relatively small.”

A ballot with names out of alphabetical order “forces voters to more closely scan the list of candidates,” Marcia Godwin, a professor of public administration at the University of La Verne, said via email.

“Intuitively, the effects likely matter less when there are only a few candidates on the ballot as opposed to a multitude.”

In general elections, “ballot order is less critical for positions that are down to two candidates after a top-two primary,” Godwin said.

In races for local offices, “ballot order likely matters more in the shrinking number of cities and school districts with at-large elections and a number of candidates,” she added. “The odds go up that a candidate near the bottom of the ballot may miss the last seat by a narrow margin.”