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Vote

The November ballot

Three open seats, no incumbents, and a tax measure.

Week of October 5–11, 2026 · Updated Saturday, October 10, 2026 · Source: Mountain View Legistar (live)

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Council seats are decided citywide, so every Mountain View voter votes on every seat that is up. There are no districts and no district ballots.

How a Mountain View council election works

• At large, not by district. All seven seats represent the whole city. You vote on every seat that is up, and so does everyone else.
• Plurality, and you get as many votes as there are seats. If three seats are open you may vote for up to three candidates, one vote each. The three highest vote-getters win. There is no ranked choice, no runoff, and no requirement to reach 50%.
• Four-year terms, staggered. Three or four seats are filled at the general municipal election in November of every even-numbered year, so the Council never turns over all at once.
• Two consecutive full terms is the limit. That is why open seats appear on a regular clock rather than only when someone retires.
• Nonpartisan. No party labels appear on the ballot for city office.
• Mayor is not on the ballot. The Council appoints one of its own each January — see Mayor.

Practical consequence: because a majority is four of seven and every member answers to the same electorate, a Mountain View campaign is a citywide campaign. There is no small district to organise and win.

The deadlines, as rules rather than dates

California states these as intervals, and so does this page. Count from Election Day — the Tuesday after the first Monday in November in an even-numbered year — and you will always have the right date.

• Register 15 days before Election Day. That is the standard deadline. Register online with the California Secretary of State, or on paper at any library, post office, DMV office or the City Clerk.
• Missed it? You can still vote. California allows conditional voter registration from 14 days before Election Day right through Election Day itself, at the Registrar’s office or any vote centre. You register and cast a provisional ballot on the spot; it counts once the Registrar verifies your eligibility.
• A ballot is mailed to you starting 29 days before Election Day. Every registered voter in Santa Clara County is mailed one. You do not have to ask.
• Request a replacement ballot up to 7 days before Election Day if yours does not arrive or is spoiled.
• Return it any of three ways — the prepaid postage envelope, any official county drop box, or any vote centre. A mailed ballot must be postmarked on or before Election Day.
• Vote centres, not precinct polling places. Santa Clara County runs elections under the Voter’s Choice Act, so you may use any vote centre in the county, not one assigned to your address. Hours on Election Day are 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
• Sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds can pre-register. Registration activates automatically at 18.

Check your own registration in two minutes

• Register or update your registration — California Secretary of State.
• Check whether you are registered — and at which address. Worth doing after any move; a stale address is the most common reason a ballot never arrives.
• Track your ballot and sign up for status alerts — you are told when it is mailed, received and counted.
• Find a vote centre or drop box.
• See what is on your ballot.

The Registrar’s general line is (866) 430-VOTE and its candidate services line is (408) 299-8639.

How something becomes a Mountain View ballot measure

Four routes, and they behave very differently afterwards:

• The Council puts it there. A resolution of the Council places a measure — a tax, a bond, an advisory question — before the voters. This is how the hotel-tax measure reached the ballot.
• Citizens qualify an initiative. Residents gather signatures to put an ordinance or a charter amendment on the ballot directly. This is how the rent-stabilization charter amendment got there.
• Citizens refer an adopted ordinance. After the Council passes something, opponents can gather signatures to suspend it and force a citywide vote. This is how the oversized-vehicle parking restrictions ended up on the ballot as a referendum.
• A charter amendment. Mountain View is a charter city, and its charter can only be changed by the voters.

That last distinction is the most consequential one on this page. An ordinance the Council adopted, the Council can amend. Something in the charter — the rent-stabilization act, for instance — the Council cannot touch at all; only another vote of the people can change it. When someone tells you the Council should just fix the rent ordinance, that is the answer.

Tax measures also split by type: a general tax, whose revenue goes to the general fund, needs a simple majority; a special tax earmarked for a named purpose needs two-thirds. That is why revenue measures are so often written as general taxes with a list of intended uses rather than a legal earmark.

What else is on the ballot

The Council voted to place a hotel tax measure before voters — raising the transient occupancy tax, which is paid by hotel guests rather than residents, from its long-standing 10% toward a ceiling in the mid-teens. The city estimates several million dollars a year for streets and sidewalks, emergency response, affordable housing and parks. Mountain View last raised this tax in the early 1990s and sits among the lowest in the region.

The measure replaced a much larger general obligation bond the city had been exploring; polling showed support falling and the Council dropped it.

Two other bodies are elected on the same ballot and are not the City Council: the Mountain View Whisman elementary board and the Mountain View Los Altos high school board. Council candidates have no authority over schools.

Checking candidates

This site does not publish a candidate list, and that is a deliberate refusal rather than an omission. Filings are certified by the Registrar, not the city; early press lists change as candidates withdraw, filings are rejected and write-ins appear; and a stale list on a civic site is worse than no list, because people believe it. The Registrar of Voters is the only authoritative source.

For what a candidate would actually be voting on if elected, the Projects page is a fair proxy: those are the items that will reach the next Council. The candidate forum recorded by the community media channel is the closest thing to a debate this city holds.