The County Voter Information Guide for the November 4, 2025 special election has been mailed. It has information about how, when and where voters can submit their ballots. Ballots will be mailed to registered voters. Once you get your ballot you can:

• Return it by mail any time from October 6 through Election Day, November 4. For mailed ballots to be counted, they must have been postmarked on or before November 4 AND have been delivered to the County Office of Voter Registration and Elections by the 7th day after Election Day. 
• Drop it off at any official Ballot Drop Box location any time from October 6 through November 4, Election Day. The Voter Information Guide has a list of the locations and the days and times the drop boxes are available. Note that the days and times vary from place to place.
• Drop it off OR vote in person at any Vote Center. Some Vote Centers will be open from October 25 through November 4. Others will be open from November 1 through November 4. Voting hours vary from place to place, but all Vote Centers will be open from 7am to 8pm on Election Day, November 4.

There is one issue on the ballot, one that will potentially redistrict our community from one Congressional District to another. Regardless of how you feel about that issue, we urge all eligible voters here to exercise their right to vote. To do so, voters must register by October 20th, however conditional registration starts on October 21st and runs through Election Day, November 4. So, for example, a citizen who moves into California after October 20th is eligible to vote as a conditional voter. See the Voter Information Guide or contact the County Office of Voter Registration and Elections for details. The phone number for the County Office is (916) 875-6451 and the website is www.elections.saccounty.gov.

The Voter Information Guide is straightforward. It's all clear and simple clear,  unless you happen to live in certain invisible unincorporated communities. The guide tells you where to find ballot drop boxes and vote centers in lots of places - cities or unincorporated communities - BUT NOT ARDEN ARCADE! Drop boxes and vote centers handy to our beloved nowhereland are listed as being in Sacramento. Sure, you can use ANY of the County's 62 drop box locations and you can go to ANY of the County's 31 vote centers, but if you want to use locations in our community, your choices are:

• DROP BOXES at either the Arcade Library (2443 Marconi) or the Arden Dimick Library (891 Watt) open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10am-6pm October 6 through November 4, but NOT on October 15
• A VOTE CENTER at the Conzelmann Community Center in Howe Park (2201 Cottage Way) open daily from 9am-5pm from October 25 through November 3 AND from 7am to 8pm on Election Day, November 4.

We sure wish the County would list the election sites in Arden Arcade so we don't have to! The County's Voter Guide has hidden the Arden Arcade sites before in 2024, 2022, 2021, 2020, and 2018. Why? Because our community's mailling addresses are set by the U.S. Post Office as a way to assign work to their employees. No matter who is our Supervisor, the County's Voter Guide routinely takes the easy way out, relying on the Post Office's Zip Codes that make it seem like our community is part of the City of Sacramento (which it is not) instead of identifying our community. Obscuring our community identity creates confusion for  the public, our residents and our businesses. Other places - cities and even some unincorporated communities - have taken action to straighten things out, including a baby step our Supervisor once took at one of our many freeway off-ramps. Hmm...maybe if our community of 100,000 people was a city. Oh, wait, it's not. Never mind.