Many Californians encountering the June 5 primary ballot for the first time might say to themselves: “This is craziness.” There are 31 challengers to U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and 27 candidates hoping to succeed Gov. Jerry Brown.

Among the higher-profile names — Gavin Newsom, Antonio Villaraigosa, Kevin de León, John Chiang, Delaine Eastin — are many that are not so prominent in California politics. The U.S. Senate list includes a bus driver from Nevada City, a chiropractor from San Jose, a water scientist from Berkeley, a construction project manager from Burbank, and a retired Air Force sergeant from San Pedro. The gubernatorial hopefuls include a puppeteer/musician from Antelope (Sacramento County), a hip-hop artist from Placentia (Orange County) and a transhumanist lecturer from Mill Valley.

“It’s nice to know you’re not alone in terms of your aspirations,” Lt. Gov. Newsom, a front-runner in the governor’s race, said with a laugh when asked about the glut of candidates during his visit to The Chronicle last week.

Voters are likely to ask themselves: Who are these people? What does it take to qualify for the statewide ballot, anyway?

The bottom line is that the price of admission to a spot on a statewide ballot is quite modest. It takes as few as 65 signatures and a filing fee of 2 percent of the first year’s salary for that office (the governor now makes $191,100, a U.S. senator makes $193,400) to qualify. It is also possible to qualify by simply collecting 7,000 signatures.

It sounds easy only if you’re not trying to do it.

“Collecting signatures was hard work,” said Christopher Carlson, the 28-year-old puppeteer/musician from Antelope. He collected most of his signatures at a Jay-Z concert in Sacramento. The Green Party candidate views his gubernatorial candidacy as a tribute to environmental advocacy icons John Muir and Rachel Carson. He has personally had to shell out about $4,000 for the nomination fee (“equivalent to a used car”) and an additional $500 to publish his riddle (“about meteors”) in the voter information guide.

He hopes his campaign will help boost the Green Party and offer voters greater choices and an infusion of “common decency, kindness and civility” in politics.

“I have a personal distaste for Twitter politics,” Carlson said.

Who doesn’t in 2018, especially with the 45th president setting a low tone?

Carlson is teaming up with a Libertarian rapper who goes by the stage name QBall. That would be Nickolas Wildstar, 36, whose new album, “Evolve or Die,” is available for free on SoundCloud.

“I’m hoping to follow in the footsteps of Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger to become a first-time governor of California that has also worked in the entertainment industry,” he said.

Wildstar said he had hoped to collect the 7,000 signatures to avoid the filing fee but fell short. A wealthy Sacramento-area tomato tycoon and devout libertarian, Chris Rufer, came to the rescue with a $5,000 donation — and the campaign was on. Wildstar and Carlson are hoping to vault their two parties into a November runoff.

“Letting voters know that I don’t need a million dollars to get a million votes is inspiring to them and makes them feel like a common person such as myself actually has a chance at winning the election,” Wildstar said.

Zoltan Istvan is a 45-year-old Mill Valley resident who made his money in real estate and now has become a renowned speaker on transhumanism, which he defines as “using radical science and technology to improve human beings.” No one can accuse him of avoiding the tough issues: aging and death.

“As governor, I would declare aging a disease and put funding directly into stopping aging,” said Istvan, running as a Libertarian with a wide-ranging agenda that includes reparations for marijuana convictions, open borders and deploying robot police and drones in schools and public places to prevent mass shootings and terrorism.

He qualified for the ballot through an all-volunteer petition drive.

“We went to farmers’ markets, libraries and other public places and asked them to sign after telling them about my campaign,” Istvan said. “I do not and have not taken donations whatsoever for my gubernatorial run.”

Istvan harbors no illusions about his chances of becoming governor. “California is not a friendly state to Libertarians.” But he is counting on the campaign to help build a base to become the Libertarian Party’s presidential nominee in 2020.

Remember that name. Istvan, the one candidate taking on death itself.

Democrat Michael Shellenberger, leader of an environmental think tank in Berkeley, is equally realistic about his odds of becoming the state’s next governor. He is well known to many journalists in the state from his 1990s work on the campaigns to save the ancient redwoods in the Headwaters Forest and his efforts to prevent the closure of nuclear power plants after his well-chronicled conversion on the issue. But his name recognition among voters is no match for fellow Democrats who were big-city mayors or statewide officeholders. He has not made an effort to travel the state; he reaches voters through social media and his website.

His goal is to pierce the comfort zone of “transactional Democrats” by emphasizing issues they are loath to touch: the unfunded liabilities for pension and retiree health care of public workers, “fairness reform” on property taxes (including residential), and open support for the bill just defeated in the state Legislature that would have compelled higher density around transit.

Not all of the candidates jumped into the 2018 election with relish.

Rash B. Ghosh, a 73-year-old professor of water chemistry, answered the call of his Berkeley neighbors. They tried to persuade him in the past to run for U.S. Senate, but he declined because of other commitments.

“My neighbors and friends in Berkeley insisted, and they made all the arrangements,” said Ghosh, an independent. “They collected several hundred signatures in a few hours, which really impressed. So I have no choice but to agree with them.”

And so it goes in a state of nearly 40 million, where all it takes to reach the statewide ballot is 65 friends, relatives and acquaintances, along with a $4,000 fee.

Voters who are grumbling at the search for familiar names from a long list at the June 5 ballot can take solace in two points. One, they will be considering just five state propositions, though the relief will be temporary. The Democrat-controlled Legislature voted in 2011 to shift all citizen initiatives to November general elections, when, of course, turnout is higher and presumably more favorable to the party’s positions.

Besides, Californians have shown they can pick a favorite out of a ballot lineup, no matter how unwieldy. The ballot on the Oct. 7, 2003, recall of Gov. Gray Davis featured a field of 135 candidates that included porn actress Mary Carey, skin-mag mogul Larry Flynt, former child actor Gary Coleman and Arianna Huffington, before the establishment of her popular progressive news website. None was among the four who received more than 1 percent of the vote. Arnold Schwarzenegger came in first at 48.6 percent.

Voters who want to graze through the names of more obscure candidates can always check out their websites — most have them — where they will find words that would never be seen on a traditional candidate’s mailer.

“Please do not make any contributions to this campaign,” pleaded the Green Party’s Carlson. “If you must throw money away for politics’ sake, find a local animal shelter or aquarium and help them pay the rent.”

John Diaz is The San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial page editor. Email: jdiaz@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JohnDiazChron

Names on June 5 ballot

Governor

Akinyemi Agbede, mathemetician; J. Bribiesca, retired medical doctor; Thomas Jefferson Cares, blockchain startup CEO; John Chiang, state treasurer; Delaine Eastin, educator/youth advocate; Robert Davidson Griffis, entrepreneur/economist/father; Albert Caesar Mezzetti, retired educator; Gavin Newsom, lieutenant governor/businessman; Amanda Renteria, chief of operations for the state Justice Department; Michael Shellenberger, environmental organization executive; Klement Tinaj, CEO/educator/artist; Antonio Villaraigosa, public policy adviser; Travis Allen, California assemblyman/businessman; John H. Cox, businessman/taxpayer advocate; Yvonne Girard, judicial assistant; Peter Y Liu, no ballot designation; Robert C. Newman II, research clinical psychologist; Christopher Carlson, puppeteer/musician; Josh Jones, author; Zoltan Istvan, entrepreneur/transhumanist lecturer; Nickolas Wildstar, recording artist; Gloria Estela La Riva, graphic artist; Shubham Goel, virtual reality manager; Hakan “Hawk” Mikado, CEO/business owner; Desmond Silveira, senior software engineer; Jeffrey Edward Taylor, marketplace minister; Johnny Wattenburg, business owner.

U.S. Senate

Kevin de León, state senator; Adrienne Nicole Edwards, community advocate; Dianne Feinstein, U.S. senator; Pat Harris, civil rights attorney; Alison Hartson, national political director; David Hildebrand, policy analyst; Herbert G. Peters, retired aerospace engineer; Douglas Howard Pierce, missing children’s advocate; Gerald Plummer, construction project manager; Donnie O. Turner, retired USAF sergeant; Arun K. Bhumitra, teacher/engineer/businessman; James P. Bradley, chief financial officer; John “Jack” Crew, bus driver; Erin Cruz, published author; Roque “Rocky” De La Fuente, businessman/land developer; Jerry Joseph Laws, no ballot designation; Patrick Little, civil rights advocate; Kevin Mottus, wireless safety advocate; Mario Nabliba, scientist; Tom Palzer, retired urban planner; Paul A. Taylor, small business owner; Derrick Michael Reid, retired attorney; John Thompson Parker, no ballot designation; Colleen Shea Fernald, constitutional solutions advocate; Rash Bihari Ghosh, water scientist/professor; Tim Gildersleeve, paratransit operator; Michael Fahmy Girgis, real estate broker; Don J. Grundmann, doctor of chiropractic; Jason M. Hanania, attorney/engineeer; David Moore, special education teacher; Lee Olson, aerospace systems engineer; Ling Ling Shi, author.