(a) All ballots of the same sort prepared by any county elections official, clerk or secretary of a legislative body, or other person having charge of preparing ballots for the same polling place, shall be precisely the same size, arrangement, quality and tint of paper, and kind of type, and shall be printed with ink of the same tint, so that without the numbers on the stubs it is impossible to distinguish any one of the ballots from the other ballots of the same sort.

(b) The names of all candidates printed upon the ballot shall be in type of the same size and character. If there is not sufficient space for a candidate name, the size may be adjusted as close as possible to the size and character of all the other candidate names printed upon the ballot.

Terms Used In California Elections Code 13202

  • candidate: includes any officeholder who is subject to a recall election. See California Elections Code 305
  • Clerk: means the county elections official, registrar of voters, city clerk, or other officer or board charged with the duty of conducting any election. See California Elections Code 307
  • Elections official: means any of the following:

    California Elections Code 320

  • Polling place: means a location where a voter casts a ballot and includes the following terms, as applicable: poll, polling location, and vote center. See California Elections Code 338.5

(c) For multilingual ballots, if there is not sufficient space to print candidate names in at least 10-point bold type, as required by Section 13211, the size of candidate names shall be uniformly adjusted to a size that is no less than 8-point type.

(Amended by Stats. 2023, Ch. 676, Sec. 16. (AB 1219) Effective January 1, 2024.)

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