State Sen. Leland Yee to run for California secretary of state

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State Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) said Monday he plans to run for secretary of state in 2014 when incumbent Debra Bowen must leave office because of term limits.

Yee wrote legislation that allowed Californians to register to vote online for the first time and he used Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites to announce his candidacy.

‘As secretary of state, I want to expand on this success and explore the possibility of one day not just registering online, but in fact voting online,’ Yee said in a statement. ‘If we can safely pay our bills via the Internet and board an airplane with a smartphone, we should be able to securely and easily vote electronically as well.”

Yee’s legislation allowed more than 1 million people to register to vote online, pushing overall voter registration in California to a record 18.2 million people.

A child psychologist before he was elected to the state Assembly in 2002, Yee will likely face some stiff competition running for statewide office.

The six other candidates who have filed papers to raise money for possible campaigns include state Sens. Elaine Alquist (D-Santa Clara) and Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima), and state Assemblymen Charles Calderon (D-Whittier) and Mike Davis (D-Los Angeles).

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--Patrick McGreevy in Sacramento

Randy Pench / Sacramento Bee