Big money flows in elections, and an increasing amount is going to social media.

Have you voted yet? Sara Rubin here, happy to report that I have not—after a few years of early voting by mail, I’m planning to show up in-person on Election Day this year. (I did already use the now-misleading sticker that says I voted by mail. Oops. I guess this strategy will yield me two free stickers this year.) 

Obviously there are better reasons to vote than free stickers, although I never outgrew my sticker fandom phase so I find that pretty compelling. But in all seriousness, voting matters. 

Voting is also incredibly easy and streamlined in California—sadly a political statement by leaders who want to enfranchise more people, unlike some states where the pressure is going in the opposite direction in favor of erecting more barriers. 

I interviewed Monterey County Registrar of Voters Gina Martinez about some of the how-to’s of voting, and she emphasized her department is constantly working to be visible, accessible and helpful to prospective voters. That includes setting up in parks for early in-person voting options around the county, where officials can also help troubleshoot and solve problems. 

“It's important that we're in our community on dates and times that are convenient and familiar to our voters,” Martinez told me. “That's why we're doing it, to expand opportunities, make sure voters have an opportunity to come and interface with Elections [staff].” 

In addition, Martinez adds, members of the public have come to expect elections officials to be out there and visible. 

Of course the process of voting is an apolitical process. The officials who manage these systems are there to count, to verify, to assess compliance and such. The outcome is not up to them, but ensuring every legally cast vote is counted is up to them. 

The other part of it—the who and what to vote for part—is ultimately up to us, the voters. 

It might not always feel that way, given the volume of campaign messaging you are probably receiving these days; it can feel like it’s up to big money in politics. The result of the money that candidates and committees spend is everywhere, in the form of glossy mailers appearing in snail mail boxes, constant text messages and increasingly, social media. This week’s cover story in the Weekly, originally published by CalMatters, details some of that social media spending by frontrunners in the California governor’s race. 

It’s an interesting story that is about more than spending, but also about the quickly evolving face of campaign advertising in the era of tech and legislative efforts to catch up with disclosure requirements. But as I learned in the story, those disclosures are often slow to follow. 

Whether you’re swayed by paid campaign advertisements or not, remember you get to participate in deciding who our next leaders will be, at the local, state and federal level.