"Which Districts do I live in?"
If you're not sure which districts you live in, you're not alone. Many voters have no idea which elective districts they live in or who represents them. The fact that there are so many representatives on several different levels of government only complicates matters further.
The California Voter Foundation has some tips to help you find out which State Senate, Assembly and Congressional districts you live in:
Look at CVF's County-by-County Directory
We've set up a page for each of California's 58 counties that provides the contact information for each County Elections Office -- you can call and ask them to tell you which districts you live in. These pages also list the congressional and legislative districts that fall within each county.
Your County Elections Office sends you a Sample Ballot that tells you which contests will appear on your ballot. You can use your Sample Ballot to identify many of your elective districts.
The California Legislative Counsel offers a search engine that allows you to look up your State Senate and Assembly districts by entering your zip code. Another site, called the Zipper, allows you to look up Congressional representatives and districts by zip code. However, in some cases, a zip code search will turn up more than one district in the same zip code - if this happens, consult your ballot or call your County Elections Office to determine which districts you live in.
If you know the name of a candidate running in your area, but not the district number, you can search the voter guide by the candidate's name to locate their district.
The California Voter Foundation is exploring ways to make it easier for voters to use the Internet to find out who their representatives are. We are looking into creating databases and search engines that allow a voter to enter your street address and zip code, which would then be sorted through a database and return to you a list of all the districts in which you live. To see an example of how such a search engine can work, visit the UVote4 service on Smart Valley's Smart Voter Guide (you can try out Smart Valley's address, 2520 Mission College Blvd, 95054 to see how it works).
The California Online Voter Guide is
a project of the California Voter Foundation.
