Stanislaus County gears up for Nov. 4 special election. When to expect your ballot
Ballots soon will arrive in mailboxes throughout Stanislaus County for the California 2025 special election on Proposition 50 to decide on the state’s mid-decade redistricting.
County Registrar of Voters Donna Linder said she can’t predict the turnout. Some people she’s spoken with didn’t even know the Nov. 4 special election was coming.
“So that’s still an issue, but I think once we get closer, we’ll kind of see what the excitement is about it,” Linder said.
Mail-in ballots will be sent out Oct. 6. They can be immediately mailed back or dropped off at 24 indoor and five 24-hour outdoor locations across the county.
Linder stressed that people who plan to mail their ballots on Election Day should go to a U.S. Postal Service office to ensure they get a Nov. 4 postmark.
Early in-person voting will start at five vote centers opening Oct. 25. Five more will open Nov. 1 and another will open Nov. 2. All centers will be open from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m. through election night, Nov. 4.
Linder said because of the compressed time frame, her office was able to secure only 11 in-person vote centers throughout the county, as opposed to the normal 32. “Normally, we have 145 days to set up for an election, and this one, we had just 75,” she said.
Perfecto Muñoz, CEO of the West Modesto Community Collaborative, said there normally would be voting at the King-Kennedy Memorial Center. Due to renovations starting Oct. 15, there won’t be this year. “We were hoping that this would be an opportunity to be open to the community, but because of the renovation, the access to the building would be pretty limited,” Muñoz said.
There still will be an early vote center in west Modesto, at the Westview Gardens Community Center.
Accessibility and language support will be available at all vote centers. Ballots are written in English and Spanish.
Special elections tend to get less attention and therefore fewer votes cast. In the last special election, on the recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2021, there was about a 50% turnout of registered voters.
The single-item ballot for Proposition 50 presents voters with a choice to move forward with a mid-decade redistricting plan, which would expire in 2030, or keep the current maps until they’re redrawn using the regular structure in 2030.
The special election comes after a push from democratic lawmakers to react to mid-decade conservative redistricting in Texas.
The voter guide includes the proposed map for the newly drawn congressional districts.
The last day to register to receive a ballot and election information in the mail is Oct. 20. Voters who wait can still register up to election day and vote provisionally, but they will need to go through a verification process and those votes are counted last.
Due to a law passed last year, there is a mandatory 26-day waiting period to accept cured ballots, and final certification is done on the 28th day. No official results will be in until that deadline has passed.
This story was originally published September 29, 2025 at 2:23 PM.
