# Lake Elsinore City Council, District 4 (short term) Michael Carroll is running uncontested for Lake Elsinore City Council, District 4 (short term). Full ballot at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person holds Lake Elsinore City Council District 4. They vote on the city budget, zoning, and other laws. This seat is a short term. The district returns to the regular 4-year cycle in November 2028. The Council picks its own Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem from among its members. Voters do not elect the Mayor separately. An appointed city manager runs day-to-day operations. - Jurisdiction: City of Lake Elsinore - 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/lake-elsinore-council-4 - 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 3, 2026 - Source-objectivity score: 90 out of 100 (Very strong), across 5 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Michael Carroll** — Incumbent A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot. Michael Carroll is the only candidate who qualified for Lake Elsinore's District 4 City Council seat, so they run unopposed on the November 3, 2026 ballot. This is a short (partial) term. This seat is one of five single-member districts on Lake Elsinore's City Council. The city switched from at-large to by-district council elections on February 1, 2018. The council sets the city budget, zoning and land-use rules, and city ordinances. An appointed city manager runs day-to-day operations. Most council seats carry 4-year terms. This one is a short term. Carroll's current term runs only from November 2025 to December 2026. The winner of this election serves a partial term. District 4 then returns to the regular 4-year cycle at the city's November 2028 election. A second candidate, Adelina Vega-Velasquez, pulled nomination papers for this seat. She did not qualify for the ballot by the August 7, 2026 filing deadline. That comes from the city clerk's own nomination table. So this is a genuinely uncontested race, not just a thin field. Registered District 4 voters may still file as write-in candidates through October 20, 2026. A qualified write-in's votes would be counted. Their name would not appear on the printed ballot. One note on sourcing. The clerk's own nomination table links a "Candidate Statement" for Carroll's row. That link opens the same document, with the same filename, as Brian Tisdale's District 1 statement. It is a copy-paste error on the city's own page, not a real second filing. This page does not treat that broken link as Carroll's own words. ## Michael Carroll The incumbent, seated in this District 4 seat as of November 2025 and now running for a full public vote on the balance of the term. No working Candidate's Statement, campaign site, or independent local reporting on their record was found in the sources checked for this page — the city clerk's own table links the wrong document (Tisdale's D1 statement) against their name rather than a statement of their own. **Strengths:** Already seated and serving in the district they're running to keep. **Trade-offs:** How they came to hold the seat since Nov. 2025 isn't established here, and no first-person statement of their priorities exists — the clerk's own link to one instead points to Tisdale's document. **Keep in mind:** This is a short term — whoever wins serves only through December 2026 before District 4's next, full-term election in November 2028, so the practical stakes of this particular race are lower than District 1's or District 3's. ## Sources 1. [City of Lake Elsinore City Clerk — "Upcoming Elections" page: states Districts 1 and 3 (full terms) and District 4 (partial term) are up Nov. 3, 2026, with Districts 2, 5 and City Treasurer deferred to Nov. 7, 2028; carries the clerk's own nomination table showing exactly one qualified candidate per district -- Brian Tisdale (D1), Timothy J. Sheridan (D3), Michael Carroll (D4) -- and two non-qualifying filers (Adela Gonzales, D1; Adelina Vega-Velasquez, D4); nomination period July 13-Aug. 7, 2026, write-in period Sept. 7-Oct. 20, 2026](https://www.lake-elsinore.org/249/Upcoming-Elections) 2. [City of Lake Elsinore City Clerk — "Election Districts" page: five single-member council districts, adopted Feb. 1, 2018 (switching from at-large elections), updated for the 2021-2022 redistricting cycle](https://www.lake-elsinore.org/243/Election-Districts) 3. [City of Lake Elsinore — "City Government" page: "Lake Elsinore is a General Law city governed by a five-member City Council"; council members "elected by district" and "the City Treasurer is elected at-large for a four-year term" (no City Clerk election -- the Clerk is appointed by the City Manager, per the Clerk's own department page)](https://www.lake-elsinore.org/27/City-Government) 4. [City of Lake Elsinore — City Council page: sitting roster as of Aug. 2026 -- Mayor Robert 'Bob' Magee (D5), Mayor Pro Tem Timothy J. Sheridan (D3), Councilmembers Steve Manos (D2), Michael Carroll (D4) and Brian Tisdale (D1) -- with each member's term-expiration date; Carroll's listed term ("November 2025 to December 2026") is the source for treating D4 as a short/partial term this cycle](https://www.lake-elsinore.org/216/City-Council) 5. [City of Lake Elsinore NetFile — public campaign-disclosure search](https://netfile.com/public/LES/campaign/search-entities) ## The rest of the ballot Lake Elsinore City Council, District 4 (short term) 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, "Lake Elsinore City Council, District 4 (short term) — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/lake-elsinore-council-4 (sources last retrieved September 3, 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.