# Hughson City Council Julie Ann Strain and Brian Evans are running uncontested for Hughson City Council. Full ballot at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person would hold one of two open seats on Hughson's City Council. This cycle, the seats are open. They vote on the city budget, city laws, and land use. Hughson is a small Stanislaus County city with about 7,900 residents. A separately, citywide-elected Mayor also sits on the council. Hughson elects Council members at-large, citywide. There are no council districts. - Jurisdiction: City of Hughson - Election: November 3, 2026 California general election - Seats: 2 - Publisher: Vote or Else (https://voteorelse.com) — a free, nonpartisan ballot guide for California voters. No endorsements. - Canonical page: https://voteorelse.com/2026/hughson-council - 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: September 1, 2026 - Source-objectivity score: 82 out of 100 (Strong), across 4 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Julie Ann Strain** — Incumbent - **Brian Evans** A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot. Exactly two candidates qualified for Hughson's two City Council seats: incumbent Julie Ann Strain and challenger Brian Evans. With no more candidates than seats, both are effectively elected outright on November 3. Council members vote on Hughson's city budget, ordinances, and land use, alongside a separately, citywide-elected Mayor. Hughson elects its Council members at-large -- there are no council districts. This dataset could not independently confirm council term lengths or the council's total membership: the city's own site returned a Cloudflare access challenge to every automated fetch attempt in this pass, so no municipal code or elections page could be read. This dataset checked specifically for a California Elections Code Section 10229 outcome -- the City Council filling both seats by direct appointment rather than printing the race on the ballot, since exactly two candidates filed for exactly two seats. No notice of election cancellation or appointment resolution could be found either way, because Hughson's own site was unreachable throughout this pass. Absent that evidence, this dataset builds the race as printed and contested-in-name-only, matching how this dataset treats the same equal-candidates-to-seats situation elsewhere when no cancellation notice can be found. ## Julie Ann Strain Julie Ann Strain is a sitting Hughson councilmember, running for reelection. Strain is the only one of the two Council candidates who filed a ballot designation, printed simply as "Incumbent" on the county's official candidate list. No independent news profile, campaign website, or civic-board record was found for them in this pass beyond that officeholder status. **Strengths:** Sitting officeholder status, with a checkable record in the seat. **Trade-offs:** No independent news coverage, campaign website, or record of specific votes from their time on the council was found in this pass -- only the county's bare candidate list and their incumbency. **Keep in mind:** This dataset could not reach Hughson's own site in this pass, so no fuller account of their record on the council -- good or bad -- could be checked beyond what's here. ## Brian Evans Brian Evans is running for one of Hughson's two City Council seats alongside incumbent Julie Ann Strain. Evans did not request a ballot designation, so no occupation or title prints next to their name on the county's candidate list. No independent news profile, campaign website, or civic-board record was found for them in this pass. **Strengths:** No independent source describes any record, background, or platform for them beyond their name on the county's certified candidate list. **Trade-offs:** Voters have no statement, platform, or public record to weigh for them beyond that filing. **Keep in mind:** A thin public profile here reflects what could be found in this pass -- Hughson's own site was unreachable throughout -- not a judgment about their candidacy. Because exactly two candidates filed for two seats, Evans is effectively elected outright regardless. ## Sources 1. [Stanislaus County Registrar of Voters -- "Unofficial Candidate List," General Election, Nov. 3, 2026 (refetched fresh this session; PDF metadata date-stamped 8/31/2026, page footers time-stamped 7:57 AM 8/31/2026): the "CITY OF HUGHSON" block of the "MUNICIPAL OFFICES" section names both Hughson offices -- MAYOR (Vote for 1): *George R Carr (Incumbent), Geoff Powers (**none), Sam Rush (**none); COUNCIL MEMBER (Vote for 2): *Julie Ann Strain (Incumbent), Brian Evans (**none) -- with each candidate's filed ballot designation or the document's own "**none" marker](https://www.stanvote.gov/pdf/candidate-list.pdf) 2. [Stanislaus County Registrar of Voters -- "City Clerks" directory: confirms that Hughson candidate filing runs through the city's own clerk, not the county, and gives the city's official contact information (7018 Pine Street / PO Box 9, Hughson, CA 95326; 209-883-4054; hughson.org)](https://www.stanvote.gov/city-clerks.shtm) 3. [Wikipedia -- Hughson, California: cited narrowly for the 2020 Census population (7,481; ~7,903 estimated as of July 1, 2024) -- its only City Council content is a stale mention of a 2010 recall of three since-departed members, so it is not relied on for any current officeholder, structure, or term-length claim](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughson,_California) 4. [A documented site-access gap, not a claim about any candidate's background or fundraising: the City of Hughson's own site (hughson.org, which 302-redirects to cityofhughsonca.gov) and www.cityofhughsonca.gov directly both returned a Cloudflare managed "Just a moment" challenge to every automated fetch attempt in this pass -- WebFetch and a direct curl with a realistic browser User-Agent failed identically -- so this pass could not read the city's own municipal code, elections page, council roster, term lengths, or campaign-finance disclosure location. A direct guess against the same NetFile public infrastructure Modesto and Patterson use (agency id "hughson") returned a 404 from the API and an empty, unpopulated portal shell -- weak evidence against, not proof of the absence of, a NetFile-hosted portal under some other agency id](https://www.cityofhughsonca.gov/) ## The rest of the ballot Hughson City Council 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, "Hughson City Council — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/hughson-council (sources last retrieved September 1, 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.