SLO County clerk-recorder running for reelection: ‘My job here is not yet done’
San Luis Obispo County’s top elections official is running for reelection.
Incumbent Elaina Cano announced her candidacy for the clerk-recorder seat on Thursday, according to a campaign news release. She’s running on a platform centered around election integrity and transparency, as well as a commitment to public service and accessible county services.
“My job here is not yet done,” she told The Tribune. “There’s still so much more to do.”
She joins an already crowded race that includes Gaea Powell, a former Arroyo Grande mayoral candidate who faces a trial for eight felony charges of election and voter fraud, and Vanessa Rozo, a local business owner and paralegal from Grover Beach.
In 2021, Cano was appointed to the clerk-recorder position when her predecessor Tommy Gong resigned to take another job. THen in 2022, she handily won the seat with 66.8% of the vote.
The longtime SLO County resident previously worked as Santa Barbara County’s elections division manager and served as city clerk in San Luis Obispo and Pismo Beach.
“When I have people who are interested in running against me, it’s so important that the voters understand that experience in this position matters,” Cano said.
Over the past four years, she said, she’s proud to have tamped down ample election misinformation that was running rampant through the county when she first came into office.
She said she’s improved transparency by securing a public information officer for the Clerk-Recorder’s Office who’s dedicated to educating the public on election processes. Her office has also created opportunities for people to come and watch the vote-by-mail counting process.
“There isn’t anybody out there that can say that we are not transparent or not accessible, because we 100% are,” Cano said.
She pointed to the county’s high voter participation rates as a statistic for her success. Most recently, San Luis Obispo County voters had a 67% turnout in the Nov. 4 statewide special election, representing the fourth-highest rate among all 58 counties in California.
SLO County elections official wants to modernize systems, move to vote center model
If reelected, Cano said her focus will remain on public outreach, including addressing local concerns and looping more Latino and homeless communities in to the voting process.
At the same time, she wants to streamline and modernize technology at the elections office, all while staying in budget and complying with state laws.
Cano plans to create a new notification system that alerts property owners to any fraudulent activity related to their deed. She’s also looking into moving the county away from polling places to a vote center model, which would allow voters to cast their ballots at any center in the county, instead of having to vote at a specific polling precinct.
She said it doesn’t make sense for the county to continue providing up to 70 polling places that sometimes only see 10 voters on Election Day.
“We’re paying for that facility, we’re paying for those poll workers, we’re paying for all of those supplies, and for nobody to really be going there,” Cano told The Tribune. “It makes no sense to continue to go with a polling place model, but to go down to the vote center model.”
If the county moves away from polling places, she envisions having 20 vote centers available, split evenly among the five supervisorial districts. Some vote centers would be open 11 days prior to an election, and all 20 would be open the four days in the lead up to election, Cano said.
Cano to distance herself from some election work this cycle
When it comes to running the county’s primary and general elections this year, Cano said her work will be largely “hands-off” since her name is appearing on the ballot this election cycle.
She will still sign off on the design of the official ballots and assist with poll worker training and public outreach efforts. However, Cano plans to remove herself from processes surrounding vote counting, signature verification and candidate filing.
“There’s not a law that says you are prohibited from doing that,” she said. “That is just my own boundary that I place because, again, I would never want anybody to question my integrity or the integrity of my office, so it’s just easier to just remove myself.”
