Official statewide voter information guides for the 2024 general election are available on the California Secretary of State's Elections website. California encourages college students to register and vote, and many resources are available through the California Students Vote project webpage, including programming and civic engagement resources and a basic guide to how our government works. Additional nonpartisan resources on statewide elections are also available from:

• California League of Women Voters ballot recommendations;
• Easy Voter Guide from the League of Women Voters of California Education Fund;
• California elections, 2024 (including primary results) from Ballotpedia; 
• 2024 Voter Guide, from Cal Matters, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization partially funded by the California State Library;
• California Voter Guide, from NPR and PBS station KQED. The Bay Area 2024 Election Guide also includes information on each significant local ballot, from US House races to recalls and tax measures to farm bans. 

Another resource is the Ballot Measures database, from the National Conference of State Legislatures. To find the California measures on the November 5 ballot, click on "California" under State, "2024" under Year, and "General" under Election, and you can find information about the 10 ballot-qualified measures, including how it was placed on the ballot (initiative or legislative referendum) and what California laws it would change (statute or state constitution).

You can also track your ballot through the Where's My Ballot? service, with the BallotTrax app.

Cities: Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose

The Bay Area includes 3 major cities -- Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose -- each of which have local measures and candidates. For each city, San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR), a regional, nonpartisan public policy organization, analyzes and recommends ballot measures and statewide legislation to improve local governance and systems within 6 policy areas: planning, housing, transportation, sustainability + resilience, economic justice, and good governance. SPUR's voter guides cover ballot measures within each city; SPUR's voter guide archive goes back to the March 2000 primary election. The November 2024 ballot guide from SPUR was released on October 8, 2024. 

Oakland

Details about Oakland elections are found at the Oakland City Elections page, and the general election includes 2 recall petitions, concerning Mayor Sheng Thao and Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price. League of Women Voters of Oakland provides details on each elected local government official, FAQs on local elections, and local issues LWV is following. News coverage is available through the non-profit organization The Oaklandside (funded in part by Google News Initiative) and the East Bay Times.

San Francisco

The City and County of San Francisco provides detailed Voter Information Guides, and excellent nonpartisan voting guides are available from the San Francisco Law Library and San Francisco Public Library.  League of Women Voters of San Francisco provide recommendations on SF ballot measures, which in 2024 includes a proposition concerning the Great Highway (California 1) between Sloat Boulevard and Lincoln Way, adjacent to Ocean Beach. Additionally, SF's mayoral election, as well as its elections for sheriff, district attorney, city attorney, and treasurer, was shifted by 2022's Proposition H to occur with the presidential elections. New coverage on races for mayor, supervisor, other local offices, and ballot measures is available from public radio and TV station KQED, the major daily newspaper San Francisco Chronicle (subscription required) and its affiliate SF Gate, and multiple nonprofit news organizations including San Francisco Public Press and Bay City News Foundation.

San Jose

The San Jose City Clerk 2024 elections webpage provides information about the general election, including 4 city council seats. League of Women Voters of San Jose/Santa Clara issues positions on specific local matters like SJ City Charter revisions, election finance, and Coyote Valley. Local news coverage is available through the major daily San Jose Mercury News.

Bay Area Regional and Counties

Various definitions exist for the "Bay Area," and a helpful examination is "Where Exactly Is 'the Bay Area'?" from SPUR. Most regional definitions include the City and County of San Francisco and the Counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma. Alameda County includes the City of Oakland, major Stanford facilities are located in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, and San Francisco is the historic home of Bay Area media, government, and business organizations, so this guide focuses on those locations.

Information from the San Mateo and Santa Clara County election officials are included below, San Francisco is above, and the Alameda County Registrar of Voters 2024 general election webpage covers what's on the ballot, candidates, and ballot measures. League of Women Voters of the Bay Area coordinates local leagues, participates in region-wide planning studies (currently Plan Bay Area), and issues letters of action on regional transportation, housing, climate change, and socioeconomic matters. LWVBA has a comprehensive list of all local chapter ballot recommendations. These include LWV Los Altos-Mountain View, LWV South San Mateo County, and LWV Palo Alto. Regional news sources are generally San Francisco and San Jose-based media, both listed above.

Stanford's historic campus is located within Santa Clara County, and the nearest city is Palo Alto; Stanford also has facilities within Menlo Park and Redwood City, both of which are located in San Mateo County. If you choose to register to vote with your Stanford housing address, confirm your city and county, or check what's on your ballot using any of the tools listed above. Links for each local government are below:

• San Mateo County Chief Elections Officer 2024 General Election page;
• Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters 2024 general election webpage (including access to County Voter Guide);
• Menlo Park City Clerk 2024 general election webpage;
• Palo Alto City Clerk municipal elections webpage; and
• Redwood City Clerk 2024 municipal election webpage.

League of Women Voters of Palo Alto provides information and links for voting in Santa Clara county, including YouTube videos of Pro/Con and candidate forums. 

The California Secretary of State maintains voter hotlines in various languages and for individuals needing assistive devices. Below is the list for the 2024 election cycle:

• (800) 345-VOTE (8683) - English
• (800) 232-VOTA (8682) - español / Spanish
• (800) 339-2857 - 中文 / Chinese
• (888) 345-2692 - हिन्दी / Hindi
• (800) 339-2865 - 日本語 / Japanese
• (888) 345-4917 - ខ្មែរ / Khmer
• (866) 575-1558 - 한국어 / Korean
• (800) 339-2957 - Tagalog
• (855) 345-3933 - ภาษาไทย / Thai
• (800) 339-8163 - Việt ngữ / Vietnamese
• 711 - TTY/TDD

Additional details are found at the Secretary of State's Voter Hotline page, including links to official ballots in each of the above 10 languages.

For anyone who needs proof that every vote counts, Alex Vassar of the California State Library has created and compiled a list of the closest elections in California, with details for legislative and statewide races. One vote separated William B. Lardner and Ben P. Taylor in the 1900 Senate District 5 election, out of 6,187 votes cast, a margin of 0.016%!