- ocvote.gov (opens in a new tab)OC Registrar of Voters -- Contest/Candidate Proof List, General Election 11/3/2026 -- City of Fullerton section (pages 92-94 of 188): confirms City Council District 3 (2 qualified candidates) and District 5 (3) as the city's two November 2026 races, each Vote for 1, with incumbent flags and every candidate's filed ballot designation
- en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia's Fullerton, California article, government section: confirms Fullerton is a general-law, council-manager city with a 5-member, non-partisan City Council on staggered 4-year terms and no directly elected Mayor -- the council elects a chair who serves as Mayor (currently Fred Jung, with Nick Dunlap as Mayor Pro Tem) -- and that the city moved from at-large to five-district council elections after voters approved Measure II in 2016; also confirms Ahmad Zahra and Shana Charles as sitting councilmembers, corroborating the county document's incumbency flags for Districts 5 and 3
Last updated August 31, 2026.
City of Fullerton
Fullerton City Council, District 5
This person holds your district's seat on Fullerton's City Council. The council has five members. They vote on city ordinances, the budget, and land use. An appointed city manager runs day to day operations. Fullerton has no separately elected Mayor. The council elects a Mayor from its own members each year. It also elects a Mayor Pro Tem the same way. Not all five council districts are elected in the same year. Only Districts 3 and 5 are up in 2026. The term is four years.
Three candidates are running for Fullerton City Council District 5's open seat. They are Oscar Valadez, David Fischbein, and Jozef Maldonado. Incumbent Ahmad Zahra did not file for reelection. Whichever candidate gets the most votes on November 3 wins outright. There is no runoff.
This person holds District 5's seat on Fullerton's 5-member City Council. They vote on city ordinances, the budget, and land use, alongside an appointed city manager who runs day-to-day operations. Fullerton is a general-law city with no separately, citywide-elected Mayor -- the council elects a Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem from among its own members each year. Not all five council districts are elected the same year; only Districts 3 and 5 are up in 2026. The term is four years.
This is Fullerton's only open council seat in 2026 -- the other race, District 3, has an incumbent on the ballot. Beyond each candidate's own filed occupation, no campaign site, news coverage, or other independent source could be found for any of the three despite a real, per-candidate search effort -- the city's own site is bot-gated against direct fetch, Ballotpedia and Voice of OC returned no usable content for this race, OC Register was unreachable, and this session's WebSearch budget was already exhausted before any query-based search for this city could run. A guessed Wikipedia page for outgoing incumbent Ahmad Zahra also 404'd, so no independent account of why he didn't file for re-election could be confirmed. Documented below as a gap, not filled in with speculation.
Oscar Valadez
Oscar Valadez filed their candidacy under the ballot designation "Fullerton Commissioner/Businessowner." That title suggests they currently serve on one of the city's boards or commissions. No campaign website or news coverage could confirm which commission. None described their business background or platform either.
David Fischbein
David Fischbein filed their candidacy under the ballot designation "Quality Assurance Inspector." No campaign website or news coverage describing their background or platform could be found.
Jozef Maldonado
Jozef Maldonado filed their candidacy under the ballot designation "Chemist." No campaign website or news coverage describing their background or platform could be found.
Your pick
A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot.