Opinion: I won my first election by 24 votes. Trust me, your vote matters

In November 2020, I waited weeks to find out whether I’d won my first race for San Fernando City Council. When the last ballots were finally counted, I had beaten the sitting mayor by 24 votes.

I think about those 24 votes whenever someone suggests a few rejected ballots don’t matter. In local elections, a handful of voters can decide who sits on the city council, whether a school bond passes, or which neighborhood gets the new park.

In fact, since 2018, there have been 660 elections decided by 10 or fewer votes. Over half of those were fewer than 5. In my community, that is only one household.

Authors of the measure will tell you this is about voter fraud. It's not. This measure is carrying out Trump’s agenda. It is backed by Trump allies who launched it after President Trump called on California to adopt voter ID after his failed SAVE Act. This is another attack on women and people of color who are intimately aware of how inept this administration is and are a threat to its continuation.

Prop 39 asks you to change the California Constitution so that every ballot cast has to come with additional proof of identity. It sounds simple, but it actually adds new hurdles to voting. Under Prop 39, one wrong digit in your ID number, an outdated address, a misspelled name, or skipping an extra step with election officials could get your ballot rejected or keep you from getting a mail ballot at all.

Our state already verifies every ballot before the vote is counted. Here’s how it currently works:

You provide an ID number when you register to vote and swear under penalty of perjury that you’re eligible. Every mail ballot is checked against the signature on file, and if something looks off, voters are given a chance to fix it. 

When I collected signatures when I ran for San Fernando, the first step to getting on that ballot, a signature from my neighbor got rejected. When I asked why, the clerk said her signature didn't match. Turns out, she signed her new married name, but her signature on file had her maiden name. Then we knew she needed to update it; and now you know they actually check it!

Prop. 39 wouldn't replace any of those verification measures, but instead adds one more way for a valid ballot to be thrown out. Someone who registered at the DMV years ago may not know which number ended up in their record, and writes down the other one. Someone whose name changed after a marriage or divorce shows up to vote with an ID that hasn’t caught up with the voter rolls. None of these people did anything wrong, and every one of them has the right to vote. Under Prop. 39, their ballots could be set aside anyway, not because of who they are, but because two records didn’t line up, like in the case of my neighbor.

In addition, in a community like mine, where many families waited years to become citizens and cast their first ballot, that matters. People who did everything right shouldn’t be told by their own state that their vote is in doubt.

As mayor, I worked to make it easier for people to take part in their local government. We added translation at public meetings and childcare so parents could actually show up. They were small changes, and they made a real difference. Prop. 39 takes us in the opposite direction, putting a new obstacle between people and their ballot.

Those 24 votes taught me that every eligible voter’s ballot matters. I’m asking my friends, family, neighbors, and all Californians to vote no on Prop. 39.