Shirley Weber has done the job competently, and we endorse her for another term.

The Secretary of State's primary job is running California's elections, and Weber has done it without drama — which is exactly what you want. Under her tenure, California hit a record 22.6 million registered voters in 2024, and over 5 million Californians signed up for ballot tracking through the "Where's My Ballot" system. She's also expanded same-day voter registration and grown the number of Voter Choice Act counties, which give voters more flexibility in where and when they cast their ballots.

When the federal government demanded California's full voter registration database, Social Security numbers included, Weber refused and won in court in January. She has defended mail voting the same way. When the Supreme Court cleared the administration in August to keep pursuing new limits on mail voting, she committed that every eligible Californian will still get a mail ballot and have it counted. And California's rule that a ballot postmarked by Election Day counts if it arrives within seven days held up when the Supreme Court ruled on the question in June.

We'd like to see her push harder on campaign finance transparency. The state's Cal-Access disclosure database is difficult to use and makes it too hard to trace certain types of electoral spending. Voters deserve full transparency around political money.