The headline for this post is derived from two stories published in the last few days. The first story is out of Nevada County, California, population 102,000, with Hailey Branson-Potts reporting for the Los Angeles Times. Here's the lede:
The campaign mailer featured red letters over a distorted, close-up photo of the candidate’s face: THIS ELECTION VOTE FOR ANYBODY BUT NATALIE.
It called Natalie Adona, who is Asian American and running for office in a predominantly white, rural Northern California county, “a CARPETBAGGER.”
The postcards that were sent last month — which provoked outrage by some residents and by elected officials who called them racist — have been part of a vicious campaign for what was once a mundane, nonpartisan position: clerk-recorder and registrar of voters for Nevada County.
Adona’s sins, in the eyes of her detractors: She called the 2020 election legitimate, and she enforced a mask mandate in a county office.
Adona, the assistant clerk-recorder/registar, is running to replace her boss, Gregory Diaz, who is retiring.* * *
The election in this Sierra Nevada county of 103,000 people has become a microcosm of the conspiracy-laden and bitterly partisan politics gripping the nation, as Americans — many enraged by pandemic policies and culture-war issues like critical race theory — head to the polls in this midterm year.* * *
Unlike much of rural Northern California, it is not exactly a Republican stronghold, having backed Joe Biden over Donald Trump, 56% to 41%, and last year voting against recalling Gov. Gavin Newsom.
But the specter of Trump’s lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen looms large for many, with the distrust of vote tallies and election workers he fomented trickling down to small local races like this one.
Paul Gilbert, one of Adona’s opponents in the June 7 primary, is a self-described “citizen auditor” who personally inspected local 2020 election results. He says he found sloppy, outdated voter rolls and evidence of fraud — claims the county refutes.
Gilbert, a retired information technology engineer, says he thinks voting by mail leads to cheating.
He also believes election officials should have the right to break open and inspect voting machines because they could, among other things, have cellphone modems hidden inside that collect information for nefarious actors.
“There is a lack of due diligence,” Gilbert said. “That’s what it boils down to.”
Gilbert said he had nothing to do with the mailer disparaging Adona and called it “a hit piece.” But he said the flier — which accused her of bringing Beltway politics to a county where she’s a relative newcomer — raised “valid questions.”
The second story is out of Shasta County, which I've written of frequently and most recently here, where militia-backed (or just militia) folks endorsing a slate of candidates closely watched the count. By some accounts, they tried to intimidate election workers. They also put up a wildlife camera to observe the back door of the building where votes were being counted. This is from the Redding Record-Searchlight, by Damon Arthur and David Benda:
Shasta County elections officials said discussions with representatives of anti-establishment candidates became "contentious" and at least one worker said she felt "intimidated" by them.
Joanna Francescut, assistant county clerk and registrar of voters, said some of the people who showed up Tuesday night were trying to intimidate election officials by telling them to seal off a room where the ballots are kept.
Francescut said the office's employees are following the law.
At one point, several people gathered around County Clerk and Registrar of Voters Cathy Darling Allen and confronted her.
Darling Allen said later she spent more than four hours talking to observers in discussions that she said were at times "contentious."
"I've been doing this job the same way for 18 years, and all of a sudden things are different. And I am a little bit flummoxed by it. But that's OK. What I'm interested in is trying to figure out how to come to a compromise that works for everybody," she said.
"But at the end of the day, I am the registrar. I am the expert at doing this, and we're doing it. We are complying with all laws and other regulations," Darling Allen said.
Elections officials also found a trail camera, such as a hunter might use to spot game, set up in the alley behind the election’s office. They do not know who put the camera there.
By 12:35 a.m. the trail camera had been removed. At that hour, the elections department was also closed up and all ballots had been delivered from precincts from throughout the county.
Among those present earlier in the evening at the downtown office were activist Carlos Zapata and Shon Northam, a North State criminal defense lawyer who has been an outspoken critic of Shasta County District Attorney Stephanie Bridgett. Late results showed Bridgett winning re-election.
DA candidate Erik Jensen has said some of his supporters have overlapping affiliations with those who sponsored the supervisor's recall, including the Red, White and Blueprint group.
Many of the observers at the elections officer were supporters of a slate of candidates that billed themselves as "anti-establishment."
Darling Allen said the number of observers Tuesday night was unprecedented.
"I haven't had an election night crowd like that. I don't know if we've ever had a crowd with as many people that were here yesterday, ever," she said on Wednesday.
I appeared with Darling Allen on Capital Public Radio earlier this year to discuss the militia-backed recall of a member of the Shasta County Board of Supervisors. I found her to be highly articulate, the consummate professional.
Here's an LA Times story that ran a few days before the election, about how things in Shasta County were shaping up.
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