In summary
We’re expanding our 2024 Voter Guide to live events, printable zines, and TikTok videos to reach more audiences across California, while still continuing to deliver nonpartisan election reporting.
CalMatters has been bringing Californians a trusted, nonpartisan Voter Guide since the 2018 election, and this fall, we’re making it more accessible than ever before.
What’s new this year
🎤 Live & In-Person: We’re heading to libraries, bike depots, restaurants, college campuses, and other community spaces to bring people together across the state to talk about what’s on the ballot this November. Read about our first events and check out our full fall lineup. We’d love to see you at one of them.
📃Props in Print: Inspired by the magazine quizzes from our childhoods, we’ve created one-page quizzes to guide readers on where they stand on each of the propositions this year. These print quizzes are already a hit at our live events, and we’re now making them available to print and share.
We adapted these quizzes from the online version that you can find on our Voter Guide, using brand colors and spot illustrations to make the handouts visually engaging. In addition to translating the prop quizzes into Spanish, Chinese and Korean, we’ve also ensured that the PDFs are accessible to screen reader users.
⭐ Voter Guide Zines: This allows people without internet access or who prefer reading in print to access a props-focused version of our guide this fall. We’ll be distributing these across the state, and making the free, full PDFs available on our website to share and distribute. Want us to mail you free copies to share with friends and family? Become a sustaining member today.
🎶 Props on Social: To reach younger voters and first-time voters this fall, we’re experimenting with explainer skits that break down the issues on TikTok and Reels. Sometimes, our videos even feature zombies. And the reviews are in: We’re cringe but lowkey lit.
📚 Accessibility: Our guide has been available in English and Spanish, and this fall we’re adding Chinese and Korean versions. We’re also making it easier to use for people with various abilities by building a simplified language version for English learners and others.
Continuing to help voters make informed decisions in 2024
Our guides in 2018, 2020 and 2022 elections and the 2021 recall election have been commended by California voters for being unbiased, clear and easy-to-use, and we’re excited to bring our voter guide to even more people this fall.
“CalMatters is terrific – I always want to be an educated voter and don’t trust the TV ads and countless pieces of mail I get regarding various issues on the ballot. I enjoy your no-nonsense style,” said CalMatters member Diane of Los Altos Hills.
On top of everything new we’re debuting, this year’s Voter Guide will, once again, bring you our existing, trusted ways of informing voters:
Nonpartisan Guide: Our clear write-ups on candidates (State Senate, State Assembly, U.S. Senate and U.S. House) are nonpartisan, keeping the focus on their stances on issues and drilling down to show their funding sources.
Props-in-a-Minute Videos: Our award-winning Props-in-a-Minute explainers make it fast and easy to be informed on propositions that can often be confusing and sometimes intentionally misleading for voters.
See Where You Stand on Props: Our interactive quizzes help you figure out how your views line up with the propositions, from raising minimum wage to rent control expansion, and more.
FAQs: Our Frequently Asked Questions page includes answers for the most common questions about the Nov. 5 election in California. Still have a question? Ask the CalMatters Politics team.
Early Ballot Prep: We rolled out our nonpartisan guide to voters as soon as we could. We published our first explainers in mid-July, with all the explainers launched before Labor Day weekend. This helped inform voters a full month ahead of early voting on Oct. 7.
If you’d like to stay up-to-date as we launch special, free events across the state and publish more voter resources, subscribe to our 2024 Election pop-up email list.
And if you value our nonpartisan Voter Guide and election reporting, support our nonprofit newsroom with a tax-deductible gift today. Give online by credit card, PayPal, Apple Pay or Google Pay, or by mailing us a check.