San Francisco Municipal Elections: Voting, Candidates, and Process

San Francisco holds municipal elections that determine the composition of its Board of Supervisors, the occupant of the Mayor's Office, and the holders of citywide offices including the City Attorney, District Attorney, Treasurer-Tax Collector, Assessor-Recorder, Sheriff, and Public Defender. These elections also serve as the primary vehicle through which voters enact or repeal policy directly through ballot measures. Because San Francisco operates as a consolidated city-county, its municipal elections simultaneously function as county elections — a structural feature that distinguishes San Francisco from every other jurisdiction in California except Sacramento, which only partially consolidates. This page covers how those elections are defined, how the administrative process functions, the most common electoral scenarios voters encounter, and the boundaries that determine what this system governs.

Definition and scope

San Francisco municipal elections are elections administered under California state election law and the San Francisco City Charter to fill local offices and to decide locally-sponsored ballot measures. The San Francisco Department of Elections is the charter-mandated agency responsible for administering every aspect of those elections, from candidate filing to vote canvassing and certification.

The legal framework governing these elections draws from three distinct levels:

1. California Elections Code — sets baseline rules for voter registration, ballot design, vote-by-mail procedures, and certification timelines that apply uniformly statewide.
2. San Francisco Charter — defines which offices exist, term lengths, and when elections for each office occur; it can exceed but not fall below state minimums.
3. San Francisco Municipal Elections Code — establishes local administrative rules, including campaign finance filing schedules and ranked-choice voting (RCV) implementation procedures.

Voter registration for San Francisco municipal elections is governed by the California Secretary of State's office, which sets the 15-day-before-election registration deadline for standard registration and the same-day conditional registration process authorized under California Elections Code §3500 (California Secretary of State).

Scope and coverage limitations: This page covers elections held within the geographic boundaries of the City and County of San Francisco. Elections for state legislative seats (California State Assembly and Senate), federal congressional seats, statewide offices, and statewide ballot propositions are conducted on the same ballots during consolidated elections but are administered under California state and federal law — not local authority. The San Francisco Department of Elections acts as the local administrator for those state and federal contests but does not set the rules governing them. Regional bodies such as the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Board and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission are also not covered by San Francisco's local election rules beyond the logistics of ballot delivery.

How it works

San Francisco holds two regular election cycles annually:

• June Primary Election — Held in even-numbered years alongside California primary elections; determines candidates advancing to the November general.
• November General Election — The primary election cycle for most San Francisco local offices; held in both odd and even years.

Odd-year November elections are the most consequential for purely local offices. The 11 members of the Board of Supervisors are elected by district to staggered four-year terms, with Districts 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11 on one cycle and Districts 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 on the alternate cycle — meaning 6 supervisor seats appear on the ballot in one odd-year November and 5 appear two years later.

Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV) is the counting method used for most contested local races. Under San Francisco's RCV system, voters rank up to 3 candidates in order of preference on a single ballot. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of first-choice votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and those votes are redistributed to each ballot's next-ranked candidate. This process continues until one candidate crosses the 50-percent threshold. The San Francisco ranked-choice voting page covers the mechanics of that tabulation in detail.

Candidate qualification requires:

1. Filing a Declaration of Candidacy with the Department of Elections during the designated filing period (typically 113 to 88 days before the election).
2. Paying a filing fee or collecting a requisite number of nomination signatures in lieu of the fee.
3. For Board of Supervisors candidates, residing in the district for which they are filing.
4. Meeting any office-specific eligibility requirements set by the Charter (e.g., the City Attorney must be a licensed California attorney).

Campaign finance disclosure is overseen by the San Francisco Ethics Commission, which enforces contribution limits, expenditure reporting deadlines, and public financing eligibility rules under the Campaign and Governmental Conduct Code.

Common scenarios

District Supervisor race with RCV: A voter in District 5 ranks three candidates for supervisor. Because no candidate reaches 50 percent on first-choice tallies, two rounds of elimination occur before a winner is certified. The Department of Elections publishes round-by-round results on its website after each counting session.

Citywide office with a runoff threshold: The Mayor, City Attorney, District Attorney, Sheriff, Treasurer-Tax Collector, Assessor-Recorder, and Public Defender are elected citywide. Under the Charter, if a candidate in such a race receives more than 50 percent of first-choice votes, that candidate wins outright and no RCV elimination rounds are necessary.

Ballot measure (proposition) qualification: The San Francisco ballot initiatives process allows measures to reach the ballot through three routes: (a) placement by the Board of Supervisors by a majority vote, (b) placement by the Mayor for Charter amendments requiring voter approval, or (c) citizen initiative petition requiring signatures from 5 percent of registered voters for ordinance initiatives and 10 percent for Charter amendments (San Francisco Charter, Article XIII). The San Francisco Ethics Commission monitors campaign finance activity for ballot measure committees under the same disclosure rules that apply to candidate committees.

Vacancy appointment versus special election: When a Board of Supervisors seat becomes vacant, the Mayor appoints a replacement. If the vacancy occurs more than 180 days before the next general election at which the seat would normally appear, a special election is triggered. The Charter governs this threshold directly.

Decision boundaries

Several distinctions determine how a given electoral question is handled:

The distinction between partisan and nonpartisan elections is also critical. San Francisco local offices are formally nonpartisan under the Charter — party affiliation does not appear on the local ballot. State and federal offices that appear on consolidated ballots remain partisan under California and federal law.

The San Francisco Department of Elections publishes the official election calendar, candidate filing materials, and precinct-level results for every election cycle. Voters seeking a broader orientation to city governance can begin at the main resource index, which links to agency-level pages for each office that appears on the municipal ballot.

References

• San Francisco Department of Elections
• San Francisco Ethics Commission
• San Francisco City Charter — American Legal Publishing
• California Secretary of State — Voter Registration
• California Secretary of State — Conditional Voter Registration (Elections Code §3500)
• California Elections Code — Legislative Counsel of California