Your guide to the race for SLO County’s top elections official
Three candidates are running to oversee San Luis Obispo County’s elections office.
The clerk-recorder is the top elections official in SLO County, leading voter registration, coordinating poll workers, and overseeing ballot tabulation and race results.
The nonpartisan office is also in charge of county records and documents, including marriage licenses, birth and death certificates and property recordings.
The candidates are incumbent Elaina Cano, who’s held the seat since 2021; Gaea Powell, a former Arroyo Grande mayoral candidate who currently faces a trial for eight felony charges of election and voter fraud; and Vanessa Rozo, a local business owner and paralegal from Grover Beach.
California’s primary election is on June 2.
Here’s what to know about the SLO County clerk-recorder race:
Who are the candidates?
Cano previously worked as Santa Barbara County’s elections division manager and served as city clerk in San Luis Obispo and Pismo Beach.
In 2021, she was appointed to the clerk-recorder position when her predecessor Tommy Gong resigned to take another job in Contra Costa County. Then in 2022, she won the seat with 66.8% of the vote.
This year, she’s running on a platform centered around election integrity and transparency, as well as a commitment to public service and accessible county services. If reelected, Cano said her focus will remain on public outreach and modernizing technology at the election office. She also supports moving to a vote center model.
Powell is a local business consultant and two-time Arroyo Grande mayoral candidate. She is campaigning on a platform of “radical” transparency and accountability, restoring trust in local elections and protecting constitutional rights. Powell supports voter ID requirements, same-day voting and absentee ballots “only for legitimate needs,” according to her campaign website.
Powell faces an upcoming trial for election and voter fraud charges. On June 24, the SLO District Attorney’s Office charged Powell with nine election fraud counts, including eight felonies. She pleaded not guilty to all charges in July.
The charges relate to her residency during her mayoral campaigns, when she divided her time between two homes inside and outside Arroyo Grande city limits.
The third clerk-recorder candidate — Rozo — has a background in business, paralegal work and disaster relief. She and her husband have owned and operated N-Hance Wood Refinishing of the Central Coast for 20 years, and she also works as a disaster relief organizer with FEMA and Samaritan’s Purse, The Tribune previously reported. As a paralegal, Rozo has also studied corporate and business law.
If elected to be the next SLO County clerk-recorder, she plans to promote voter accessibility, maintain accurate voter rolls and switch to the use of vote centers, according to her website.
Who is funding the race?
Rozo has received $83,317 as of late March, according to the most recent campaign finance documents available.
Most of that comes from $77,000 in personal loans from Rozo herself. However, the candidate has also received $1,000 from the San Luis Obispo Cattlemen’s Political Action Committee and $1,500 from SLO County’s Lincoln Club, which is part of a large conservative donor network aiming “to preserve the American way of life” since the early 1960s.
The rest of her contributions are from local individuals, including $131 from Shannon Kessler, the founder of the local Save Girls Sports campaign and a current candidate for California’s 30th Assembly District.
In total, Cano has raised $714 in campaign contributions from just two individuals — retired Los Osos resident Patrick Perry and South Salt Lake City parks maintenance employee Zennon Cano — in all of 2025, campaign finance filings showed.
She also transferred nearly $830 in funds from her 2022 campaign.
No campaign finance information was available for Powell’s campaign.
Who else is supporting the candidates?
Cano has earned endorsements from Central Coast Congressman Salud Carbajal and SLO County Assemblymember Dawn Addis, as well as the San Luis Obispo County Democratic Party and a slew of city council members across the county.
Rozo has been endorsed by the Republican Party of SLO County, the Lincoln Club of SLO County and the SLO Cattlemen’s PAC. She’s also been backed by former Congresswoman Andrea Seastrand, former State Senator Sam Blakeslee and former SLO County Supervisor Debbie Arnold.
Powell has not publicized any endorsements on her campaign website.
Previous Tribune coverage on the SLO County clerk-recorder race
- 3 SLO County clerk-recorder candidates face off at forum. See how they compare
- SLO County clerk-recorder running for reelection: ‘My job here is not yet done’
- Woman charged with voter fraud wants to be SLO County’s top elections official
- Local business owner, paralegal announces run for SLO County clerk-recorder
