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While the Contra Costa County Clerk-Recorder’s office serves as a hub of activity in all of the county’s elections, this year raises its profile all the more with incumbent Kristen Connelly running for office again as her first term running the office’s operations comes to a close.
Connelly is facing off in the primary election next week against political newcomer and Danville childcare provider Pratima Sonavne.
The incumbent came to office after beating out four candidates in the 2022 primary election, then squaring off against former Contra Costa Community College District Governing Board member Vicki Gordon in that year’s general election.
Connelly’s four-year term so far has marked a period of relative stability for the office, in which voters had last reelected then-incumbent Joe Canciamilla in 2018 only to see him depart the following year and plead guilty to campaign finance and perjury charges. Deborah Cooper was appointed to the remainder of his term, with her decision not to seek election to the seat giving way to the wide-open race in 2022 that saw Connelly come out victorious.
“I am committed to continuing to provide excellent customer service, increasing accessibility of the services we provide, and maintaining high standards for professionalism in all that we do,” Connelly said on her campaign website.
While Sonavne is a political newcomer, her campaign platform centers on her 20 years of experience in systems administration and management operations and a pledge to bring a fresh perspective to the office.
“Contra Costa County deserves more than a well-managed status quo,” Sonavne wrote on her campaign website. “It deserves someone who will fight for it.”
Since turning her attention to county politics after 11 years as a Contra Costa resident, Sonavne said that “what I found kept me up at night.”
“Over a dozen local positions went unopposed in recent elections,” Sonavne said. “Thousands of residents want to engage — but don’t know how. County record systems are increasingly targeted by cyberattacks. Working-class and multilingual communities are shut out by services that were never designed with them in mind. And an office that should be running with precision is weighed down by outdated processes that cost residents time, money, and trust.”
Meanwhile, Connelly contends that restoring trust in the office amid local scandal and national scrutiny on elections processes and government in general over the years has been a hallmark of her first term in office, including the 2024 Trust in Elections campaign that “helped set national standards for non-partisan election excellence through participation in the U.S. Alliance for Elections Excellence.”
Connelly’s platform also centers on expanding equity and accessibility and bolstering cybersecurity, highlighting the work of two new bilingual outreach specialists and a pilot program registering eligible voters in the county’s jails, a partnership with the University of Minnesota on its Mapping Prejudice project, and the implementation of AB 1466, which requires identifying and redacting racial restrictive covenant language and documenting historical housing discrimination.
“This is a critical time for our democracy,” Connelly said. “As your Clerk-Recorder-Registrar my top priority continues to be conducting fair, impartial, and accessible elections and keeping your data and voting systems secure.”
Nonetheless, Sonavne contends that her experience and perspective are what the county needs to bolster accessibility, cybersecurity and community engagement.
“Contra Costa needs more than good intentions,” Sonavne said. “It needs someone who has already done this.”
“I am running to make this office worthy of the trust every Contra Costa resident places in it — not just during elections, but every single day,” she continued. “That means protecting your records with the cybersecurity standards they deserve. It means making civic participation simple, accessible, and meaningful for every resident, regardless of language or zip code. And it means running this office with the operational discipline and transparency that public service demands.”
In addition to being part of her platform, Connelly told DanvilleSanRamon that cybersecurity is already a major priority for the office under her watch, particularly during election season, driven by “an outstanding IT team” and other measures.
“We have trained staff extensively in how to avoid vulnerabilities sent via email and have made investments in our infrastructure to ensure our strong cyber posture,” Connelly said. “Disinvestments in federal protections to fight international threats remain a concern but we work closely with state leaders to keep our elections safe and secure. We also have participated in tabletop exercises to prepare us for any challenging situations that we may face now, in November, and beyond.”
Overall, the biggest challenge currently facing the office was “meeting increasing demands with limited resources,” according to Connelly.
“We are constantly looking for ways to improve or maintain the high degree of public service with limited funding,” Connelly said. “For the Elections Division that means responding to significantly more questions and fighting misinformation about our work, with a very lean staff.”
That limitation in resources also extends to the office’s Clerk-Recorder Division, which manages and issues vital records and records property transactions among other critical day-to-day functions of the county government.
“For the Clerk-Recorder Division we have 25% fewer staff than when I started because we generally have not been backfilling positions after natural attrition for promotions, resignations and retirements because of the decline in recording revenue over the last four years,” Connelly said. “Retaining and motivating our experienced staff has been a priority for me.”
Sonavne said that her background in HR and systems administration would be key to addressing her major concerns about the office’s current operations, pledging to launch a public transparency and accountability dashboard on day one if elected, to shift away from requiring in-person access to the office’s services, and to increase multi-lingual resources and accessibility measures.
“I have spent over 20 years building, modernizing, and holding organizations accountable as a business owner, HR executive, and PMP-certified project manager,” Sonavne said. “I know how broken systems work. I know how to diagnose them, fix them, and prove the results publicly. Every failure I have described has a specific, executable solution — and I am ready to implement every single one of them.”
In addition to acknowledging the office’s present-day challenges, Connelly noted that there is still work to be done in improving its operations – which is one of her reasons for seeking a second term.
“This work is infinitely interesting and there is so much more to do,” Connelly said. “We have dramatically increased our engagement with schools across Contra Costa but I want to scale our impact and increase our civic education across the county in partnerships with all 19 cities and towns.”
“Continuing to work on building trust in elections will be a priority over the next four years,” she continued. “I also want to see us through the Mapping Prejudice Contra Costa project we have launched with more than 250 community volunteers in partnership with the University of Minnesota to identify and redact illegal racial restrictive covenants in our property records as required by state law.”
Sonavne contended that the office’s current system treats “diverse communities like an afterthought,” and that “jargon-laden materials, limited language access, and zero proactive outreach” pose challenges to accessibility and understanding for “multilingual families, immigrant residents, and working-class communities across Contra Costa.”
She continued, “I will deliver comprehensive multilingual services in plain everyday language, eliminate unnecessary paper by defaulting to digital delivery, and bring the office directly into neighborhoods through libraries, schools, and community pop-ups — because government that only serves people who already know how to navigate it is not serving the public. It is serving itself.”
Despite Sonavne’s extensive campaign pledges, Connelly continues to have the upper hand in many ways, as the incumbent with previous experience campaigning for the seat and overseeing the office, and in the form of prominent endorsements and campaign contributions that, while modest, far exceed her opponent’s.
Connelly’s reelection campaign had received $16,604 in donations as of May 16, bolstered by an additional $22,000 she loaned the campaign herself, while Sonavne’s was in the red as of that campaign finance reporting period with $1,218 in contributions and $1,313 in unpaid bills.
The incumbent also boasts endorsements from an array of current elected officials, including Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, State Sen. Tim Grayson, Asm. Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, Danville Mayor Newell Arnerich, and all five members of the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors.
Nonetheless, Sonavne has her own support system in the form of two fellow candidates on the upcoming ballot, San Ramon brothers Chirag and Kismat Kathrani who are running for Bauer-Kahan’s assembly seat and county assessor, respectively, following the former’s unsuccessful mayoral bid against San Ramon Mayor Mark Armstrong in 2024.
“I am pleased to support Pratima Sonavne for Contra Costa County Clerk-Recorder,” Kismat Kathrani said in an endorsement posted to Sonavne’s campaign site. “Pratima brings integrity, professionalism, and a deep commitment to public service. Her focus on transparency, efficiency, and modernizing systems is exactly what our county needs. I am confident in her ability to serve our community with accountability and deliver results that matter.”
For her part, Connelly said she was grateful to have been elected to the seat and was passionate about continuing her tenure in office.
“I love my job and am honored to have gotten involved with my counterparts statewide, as well as with elections officials across the country to share best practices,” Connelly said. “It’s such an honor to serve as Contra Costa’s Clerk-Recorder and I will work to earn a second term.”
More information on Connelly’s campaign is available at kristinconnelly.org, and more on Sonavne’s is available at countonpratima.com.
