ADEMS Election: How to vote for your Democratic Party delegates

This year, the California Democratic Party’s Assembly District Election Meeting or ADEM is all-vote-by-mail, and we’re here to help clarify the process to ensure every vote gets counted.

1. Register to vote in the ADEM

Hopefully you’ve done this already—the deadline was January 11 and has now passed!

In order to vote in the ADEM, you must be a registered voter in California with a Democratic party preference.

If you meet that requirement, and you are not running in the ADEM as a candidate, head over to the ballot request form and fill it out. (Candidates get a ballot automatically.) The deadline to request a ballot is end-of-day Monday, January 11.

You should get an email with your voter registration ID number. The subject line will be “ADEM Registration Confirmation - Registration ID XX-X-XXXXXXX”. This email is critically important and you should check your spam folder if you don’t think you’ve received it yet.

For this tutorial, we’ll use the fictional registration ID 99-6-2831853.

2. Get to know the candidates in your Assembly District

We’ve gathered lists of the candidates in the Bay Area, along with links to each district’s list of candidate statements on the CADEM website.

Much like last year’s general election, the best time to do your research and make your picks is before your ballot even arrives.

3. Receive your ballot packet

You should get another email shortly before ballots go out, telling you that your ballot will be arriving soon and showing you what the envelope looks like.

The same email also includes the link to the official instructions, which includes a generic sample ballot.

The envelope will contain your ballot and a prepaid return envelope.

4. Fill out your ballot

There are two main parts to this, including some requirements which may be a little tricky.

You’ll need a ballpoint pen with blue or black ink.

First, the voter registration ID number (also called registration ID number or voter ID number).

The instructions say “Fill in your 10-digit Voter ID number in the box” without further elaboration, but the 2021 ADEM FAQ says “Ballots where the voter Registration ID is not bubbled-in or is destroyed or unreadable will be considered invalid.”

You must both write your voter registration ID number in the digit fields above the columns, and fill in the bubbles for the corresponding digits. For example, if the first digit is a 9, you would write a 9 in the first digit field, then fill in the bubble containing a 9 in the column below it.

Here’s what our fictional example voter registration ID would look like:

Remember, this voter ID number is just an example—it’s not a real voter ID number.
You’ll need to fill in the fields and bubbles for your voter ID number, from the email you received after registering.

After you’ve filled in the fields and bubbles for your voter registration ID number, it’s time to select candidates.

You must select no more than 14 candidates. You are not restricted to any particular gender distribution; the winners will be seven “self-identified female” and seven “other than self-identified female,” but you can vote for anyone in the list, as long as you vote for no more than 14 total. If you vote for more than 14 candidates, none of the votes on your ballot will count.

It may be a good idea to write down your selections on your computer in a word processor (with a numbered list) or spreadsheet, where you can easily verify that you have chosen no more than 14 candidates, and then mark those candidates on your ballot afterward.

5. Return your ballot

You don’t need a postage stamp. Your ballot packet includes a return envelope with a stamp already on it.

Fold up your ballot and put it in the return envelope, then seal the envelope.

Find your nearest mailbox and drop the envelope in there.

We recommend mailing your ballot by Saturday, January 30. The deadline is for it to be received by the California Democratic Party by Wednesday, February 3. Mail your ballot in its return envelope as soon as you can—give the Postal Service plenty of time to deliver it before the deadline. Check the USPS’s website to find mailboxes and post offices and see their collection times.

[Updated January 23 to reflect the deadline extension. Updated again on January 27.]

If you have any questions about the process

The party has an email address for questions: adem [AT] cadem [DOT] org.