{"id":485838,"date":"2026-10-05T15:36:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T15:36:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/485838\/"},"modified":"2026-10-05T15:36:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T15:36:16","slug":"why-arent-candidates-names-in-alphabetical-order-on-california-ballots-orange-county-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/485838\/","title":{"rendered":"Why aren\u2019t candidates\u2019 names in alphabetical order on California ballots? \u2013 Orange County Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elections are supposed to be orderly affairs. But order \u2014 at least when it comes to names \u2014 isn\u2019t what you\u2019ll find on California ballots.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As a result, candidates whose last names start with \u201cA\u201d don\u2019t necessarily appear first in a list of choices for an elected office.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a practice in place since 1975 \u201cin response to court rulings declaring that standard alphabetical order or incumbent-first was unconstitutional,\u201d according to an explainer<\/a> on the California Secretary of State\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The drawing for this year\u2019s general election<\/a> fell on Aug. 13. \u201cH\u201d won the top spot, with \u201cU\u201d coming in 26th and last.<\/p>\n

For statewide offices \u2014 governor and attorney general, for example \u2014 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.<\/p>\n

Does the order of candidates\u2019 names matter?<\/p>\n

It might, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology\u2019s Election Lab<\/p>\n

Appearing first on the ballot in 2000 \u201cincreased George W. Bush\u2019s vote share by almost 10 percentage points relative to appearing last,\u201d read an analysis on the lab\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In another case, researchers found that candidates for city council and school board in California whose names appeared first \u201cwin between four and five percent more than they might be expected to if they were listed later on the ballot,\u201d the analysis added.<\/p>\n

The analysis also cited researchers who cautioned against reading too much into the order of candidates\u2019 names.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

A ballot with names out of alphabetical order \u201cforces voters to more closely scan the list of candidates,\u201d Marcia Godwin, a professor of public administration at the University of La Verne, said via email.<\/p>\n

\u201cIntuitively, the effects likely matter less when there are only a few candidates on the ballot as opposed to a multitude.\u201d<\/p>\n

In general elections, \u201cballot order is less critical for positions that are down to two candidates after a top-two primary,\u201d Godwin said.<\/p>\n

In races for local offices, \u201cballot order likely matters more in the shrinking number of cities and school districts with at-large elections and a number of candidates,\u201d she added. \u201cThe odds go up that a candidate near the bottom of the ballot may miss the last seat by a narrow margin.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elections are supposed to be orderly affairs. But order \u2014 at least when it comes to names \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":485839,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1400,7,9,8,400,989,100,13,136,6392],"class_list":["post-485838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-2026-elections","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-california-politics","tag-elections","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-top-stories","tag-voters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}