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City of South Lake Tahoe · Statewide General Election

South Lake Tahoe City Clerk

This is one contest. Enter your address to see every race on your November ballot, and keep track of your picks.

On the ballot

South Lake Tahoe's independently elected City Clerk maintains official records, administers municipal elections and disclosure filings, prepares Council agendas and minutes, and supports public access to city documents. The citywide office carries a 4-year term.

Assistant City Clerk Michelle Elaine Davis faces nonprofit executive Brandi Bannister for South Lake Tahoe City Clerk. The higher vote total wins the four-year term.

The independently elected Clerk maintains official city records, prepares Council agendas and minutes, administers municipal elections and local disclosure filings, and helps residents obtain public documents.

The choice is between direct experience inside the Clerk's office and prior elected school-board and civic-organization leadership. Davis has articulated a clerk-specific records-access agenda; no comparably detailed clerk-office platform from Bannister was found in the reviewed sources.

Michelle Elaine Davis

Davis is South Lake Tahoe's Assistant City Clerk. The Tahoe Daily Tribune reports three years in that role, including work digitizing records that had existed only on paper, and says her campaign emphasizes public access and accommodations.

Strengths

Direct experience performing the office's work and a specific records-access focus.

Trade-offs

Her experience comes from the same administration voters are evaluating.

Keep in mind

Operational familiarity is highly relevant to a clerk's office, but it is not the same as an independent assessment of its performance.

Brandi Bannister

Bannister's ballot designation is Nonprofit Executive Director. Official Lake Tahoe Unified records document prior service on its Board of Education, and South Tahoe Now identified her as South Tahoe Chamber president in 2025. No detailed 2026 clerk-office platform was found in the reviewed sources.

Strengths

Prior elected board service and leadership of a local business organization.

Trade-offs

The reviewed record does not show experience administering elections or municipal records, and no clerk-specific platform was available.

Keep in mind

Board and chamber leadership are transferable governance experience, but the Clerk's statutory and records duties are specialized.

Source review: Strong (80/100) · 7 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with multiple sources checked.

  • cityofslt.gov (opens in a new tab)City of South Lake Tahoe -- official "Elections and Campaign Disclosures" page (live fetch): "Election-November 3, 2026: 3 City Council seats, 1 City Treasurer, 1 City Clerk"; "Five Council Members, elected at large for four-year staggered terms"; its own "List of Qualified Candidates (Updated 08 13 2026, 5:00 p.m.)" names 13 City Council candidates, one City Treasurer candidate (David Olivo), and two City Clerk candidates (Michelle Davis, Brandi Bannister), each with contact information as filed.
  • southtahoenow.com (opens in a new tab)South Tahoe Now -- "Candidate filing extensions announced for some South Lake Tahoe offices" (Paula Peterson, Aug. 8, 2026): the Aug. 7, 2026 County filing deadline was extended to Aug. 12, 5 p.m. for City Council and City Clerk because Mayor Cody Bass and City Clerk Susan Blankenship did not refile; names the same 13 City Council candidates and states "South Lake Tahoe City Treasurer David Olivo is running again and is the sole candidate for the position."
  • tahoedailytribune.com (opens in a new tab)Tahoe Daily Tribune -- Assistant city clerk runs for city clerk position: Michelle Davis's city experience and records-access priorities.
  • resources.finalsite.net (opens in a new tab)Lake Tahoe Unified School District -- official 2022 public-hearing notice naming Brandi Bannister as a Board of Education member.
  • southtahoenow.com (opens in a new tab)South Tahoe Now -- South Tahoe Chamber announces new chapter: identifies Brandi Bannister as chamber president and quotes her on its small-business work.
  • netfile.com (opens in a new tab)A negative-result local campaign-finance check: no NetFile portal is linked from the City's own Elections and Campaign Disclosures page (it names the City Clerk as FPPC filing officer directly instead); a guessed NetFile agency-code fetch (netfile.com/public/SLT/campaign/elections) returned only a bare client-rendered application shell with no server-side content, the same access gap documented dataset-wide for other NetFile jurisdictions.
  • cal-access.sos.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)A negative-result access check: California's statewide Cal-Access campaign-finance filer/candidate search was queried directly this pass and returned no usable content, consistent with the same access-blocking pattern documented elsewhere in this dataset. Local candidates for seats like these typically file with the city rather than the state in any case.

Last updated September 3, 2026.