# El Monte City Council, District 6 Compare records and positions simply between Marisol Cortez or Ana Elsa Barcelo for El Monte City Council, District 6 at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person holds one of six district seats on El Monte's City Council. The council also has a separately elected Mayor, for 7 members total. They vote on the budget, land use, and city laws. The term is four years. An appointed city manager runs day-to-day operations. - Jurisdiction: City of El Monte - Election: November 3, 2026 California general election - Publisher: Vote or Else (https://voteorelse.com) — a free, nonpartisan ballot guide for California voters. No endorsements. - Canonical page: https://voteorelse.com/2026/el-monte-council-6 - Full ballot: this page covers one race. Every contest on a voter's own ballot, by address, with the same breakdown for each: https://voteorelse.com/ - Sources last retrieved: August 31, 2026 - Source-objectivity score: 89 out of 100 (Strong), across 6 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Marisol Cortez** — Incumbent - **Ana Elsa Barcelo** A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot. Incumbent Marisol Cortez faces challenger Ana Elsa Barcelo for El Monte's District 6 council seat. Two other candidates, Manolo Figueroa and Dinorah Jimenez, pulled nomination papers but never filed them, so they aren't on the ballot. There's no June primary for city offices; whoever gets the most votes on November 3 wins outright. The winner takes a 4-year term on El Monte's 7-member City Council. They cast one vote alongside the separately elected Mayor and five other district councilmembers on the budget, land use, and city ordinances. Day-to-day city operations run through an appointed city manager, not the council directly. Barcelo qualified on August 13, 2026 — the very last day of the extended filing window — leaving little time for a public campaign to surface in local coverage before this research was done. ## Marisol Cortez Marisol Cortez is the incumbent District 6 councilmember, first elected in November 2022 and now seeking a second term against an opponent. The city has not posted a biographical narrative for them beyond their term dates, and no campaign-finance committee was found under their name. **Strengths:** A full term of incumbency, now being tested by an actual opponent rather than going unchallenged. **Trade-offs:** The city's own biography page for them carries no narrative — career, education, and platform aren't public record here, and no independent news coverage of their council record was found. **Keep in mind:** Cortez was not one of the two dissenting votes on the council's January 2026 vote to study eliminating El Monte's elected Mayor, Clerk, and Treasurer offices, and joined the council's unanimous February 2026 vote to table the idea instead. ## Ana Elsa Barcelo Ana Elsa Barcelo qualified for the ballot on August 13, 2026, the last day of the extended filing window. No biographical or campaign-finance information about their was found anywhere in this research: not on the city's own site, in a Cal-Access filer search, in San Gabriel Valley Tribune or Mid Valley News coverage, on Vote411, or on TheBallotBook. **Strengths:** Not established by anything found in this research. **Trade-offs:** No platform, career background, or endorsements could be confirmed anywhere. **Keep in mind:** This is a documented sourcing gap, not a sign anything is being withheld — a real, multi-source search effort came up empty for Barcelo specifically. Their name and district are independently confirmed by the city's own qualified-candidate record. ## Sources 1. [City of El Monte — Notice of Election, November 3, 2026 General Municipal Election (one Mayor at-large, 2-yr term; Council Districts 2, 3, 6; City Clerk and City Treasurer at-large — all four 4-yr terms)](https://www.ci.el-monte.ca.us/DocumentCenter/View/7811/NOTICE-CALLING-FOR-ELECTION-NOVEMBER-2026) 2. [City of El Monte — Interested Candidate List, Status of Candidate Pulling & Filing Nomination Papers (current through the extended Aug. 12, 2026 filing deadline; all three Mayor filers reached 'Date Qualified')](https://www.ci.el-monte.ca.us/DocumentCenter/View/7854/Interested-Candidate-List---8-13-2026) 3. [City of El Monte — City Council (official roster: the Mayor plus six single-member district councilmembers, a 7-member body in all; links to each member's biography page)](https://www.ci.el-monte.ca.us/342/City-Council) 4. [City of El Monte — Councilmember Marisol Cortez, District 6 (official biography page: elected Nov. 2022, term expires Nov. 2026; no biographical narrative posted beyond term dates)](https://www.ci.el-monte.ca.us/685/Marisol-Cortez) 5. [San Gabriel Valley Tribune (Southern California News Group) — El Monte City Council tables vote on making city clerk, city treasurer, mayor appointed roles (unanimous Feb. 25, 2026 vote to indefinitely table the restructuring; effort never reached the Nov. 2026 ballot)](https://www.sgvtribune.com/2026/02/26/el-monte-city-council-tables-vote-on-making-city-clerk-city-treasurer-appointed-roles-rotating-mayor/) 6. [The Mid Valley News — Council Advances Plan to Restructure Offices (names the Jan. 14, 2026 5-2 council vote to begin outreach on eliminating the elected Mayor/Clerk/Treasurer offices, with Ancona and Herrera voting no; superseded by the SGV Tribune's Feb. 25, 2026 tabling)](https://midvalleynews.com/council-advances-plan-to-restructure-offices/) ## The rest of the ballot El Monte City Council, District 6 is one contest among the many a California voter decides on November 3, 2026 — Congress, the Legislature, county, city, and school board races differ by address. Vote or Else builds the full list for any California address and breaks down each contest the way this page does, with no account and without storing the address: https://voteorelse.com/ ## How to cite this page Vote or Else, "El Monte City Council, District 6 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/el-monte-council-6 (sources last retrieved August 31, 2026). Link the canonical page above rather than this Markdown file. Coverage is updated as the race develops, so quote it with its retrieval date.