California
California sees significant election official turnover amid threats, misinformation
As counties across the state are in the final stages of designing and printing your November ballots, a CBS News California investigation found roughly half of California voters will have someone new to the job running their presidential election this year.
Experience matters for the chief county election officials, especially in this era of mistrust and misinformation where the job is increasingly complicated – and in some cases, dangerous.
That’s something Nevada County Registrar of Voters Natalie Adona knows a bit about.
“I started having panic attacks,” Adona said, “and feeling like, unless I got hurt, no one could help me.”
During her 2022 campaign for registrar of voters, the political attack ads were the least of her concerns.
“I saw the impact that it had on my staff,” Adona said.
Even after her landslide victory, she faced calls for a recount.
Adona and her staff stuck it out, but she understands why others could not.
“We’re all just doing our jobs here,” Adona said. “Some of my colleagues have found it necessary, in order to protect themselves and to protect their families, to retire earlier than they would have.”
She points to research from the Bipartisan Policy Center, which cites increasing hostility as one of the reasons for increasing turnover among election officials.
It also points to an aging workforce that is naturally near retirement and the increasing complexity of administering elections, from technology to ever-changing election laws.
What’s the impact of election official turnover?
Our CBS News analysis reveals, in 25 of California’s 58 counties, the person in charge will be running the presidential election there for the first time this year – impacting nearly half of California’s registered voters.
“Experience is super important because you have the opportunity to learn from what happened in a past election,” Adona said. “You’re also able to more quickly adjust.”
But while turnover has skyrocketed in California since the last presidential election cycle, looking back two decades, this level of turnover is not extraordinary. And not everyone new to the top job is inexperienced.
Bob Page is the new Orange County registrar of voters. He previously held the position in San Bernardino County.
“There’s actually a lot of things that are different,” Page said.
From the software to the equipment to voter preferences, he says elections vary significantly from county to county.
Page says a lot has changed since he started in 2018.
“I wasn’t getting a lot of questions from the press about how elections work. They just wanted to know who won and who lost. But that’s changed,” Page said.
“How much more consequential are minor human errors now than they were, say, five years ago?” CBS News California asked.
“I think we’re definitely much more under a microscope now,” Page said.
From running out of paper to power outages, election hiccups have always happened. But now they become headline news, so communication skills are key.
Kristin Connelly is the new Contra Costa County elections chief.
“I’ll give you an example. A handful of voters we discovered got the wrong sample ballot,” Connelly said.
She came in without any election experience.
“I have to be public about that,” Connelly said. “And people appreciate it, you know, getting ahead of it.”
As others are leaving the job, she’s one of five new chief election officials in California who never worked in an election office before getting the top job.
“Why did you want to do this?” CBS News California asked.
“I was pretty grumpy that we had had a couple of countywide election officials that had resigned in scandal,” Connelly said. “And I thought that I could bring some honor to this.”
Election worker safety
The last elected registrar in Contra Costa County pleaded guilty to nine counts of election finance fraud related to his own campaign finances.
“But the staff here are amazing,” Connelly said.
It’s a sentiment shared by all the registrars we spoke with. Staff often work long hours, face personal threats, and in some cases go weeks without a day off.
All the registrars also encourage voters with questions or concerns to reach out or come watch the process for themselves.
However, in the current climate, registrars are also focused on staff safety.
“The first thing I heard my first week on the job, the staff wanted a security guard,” Connelly said.
“We’ve added a metal detector,” Page said.
And back in Nevada County, Adona says the harassment and threats they lived through have better prepared them for whatever this year’s presidential election may bring.
“I think that we are closer as a staff. We are stronger,” Adona said. “We know that we have each other’s back.”
California GOP delegates Roxanne Hoge and Elizabeth Barcohana join Trace Gallagher to discuss multiple issues impacting California.
California GOP delegates Roxanne Hoge and Elizabeth Barcohana dissect the state’s pressing issues with Trace Gallagher. They criticize the SF Giants’ ‘Pride Night’ controversy and players’ right to religious expression. The delegates also discuss Los Angeles’s economic decline and Sacramento’s expensive homeless campsite, highlighting concerns about over-regulation and social issues. They conclude by addressing California’s large-scale Medicaid fraud, suggesting a lack of accountability.
Oakdale’s first Pride event is moving forward this weekend after organizers changed venues following pushback over its original location and a planned drag performance.
Some residents pushed back over the event’s original location at Dorada Park and a planned drag performance.
“I also understand staff has issued a permit for a so-called Pride event,” one speaker said during the latest City Council meeting.
Another speaker raised concerns about the event being advertised as open to all ages, including children, and having a drag queen host.
After the public pushback, organizers moved the event indoors to the Bianchi Center.
“It was a huge upgrade to be able to provide a more accessible space in the heart of Oakdale,” said Ryan Hall, president of CalPride.
Hall said the idea to bring Pride to the city did not come from outside Oakdale, it came from people living there.
“That’s my place as a mom of rainbow kids, absolutely,” said Elizabeth May, owner of Sisters Coffee.
May’s coffee shop hosts a monthly LGBTQ+ social.
“I had a young man walk in here and say, ‘We don’t have anywhere to have a social here for LGBTQ.’ I said, ‘Heck yes,’” May said.
Still, the backlash has left parents like May concerned.
“How does it feel? Scary. I’m excited, but as a mom of a kid in the community, I’m nervous for them,” May said.
May said the venue change helped ease some of the tension.
“The different venue made a win-win situation for everyone. I was very proud of the kids for making that hard decision,” May said.
For organizers, the drag performance is part of the celebration.
“Enjoy some line dancing, enjoy some live music, enjoy the drag show, and then also enjoy community members and our local businesses, our local artists and partner organizations,” Hall said.
Oakdale Pride is scheduled for Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Entry is free.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who is considering a run for president as he approaches the end of his term, called for a national “billionaires’ tax” on Friday even as he fights another proposal targeting the wealthy in his home state.
Newsom also said the U.S. government should own a stake in artificial intelligence companies. His proposals, outlined in a Substack post, aligns him with the Democratic Party’s populist left, and he argued that urgent changes are needed to prevent the elite concentration of wealth and power from undermining democracy.
“It’s time for an economic reset for America,” Newsom wrote.
The governor announced his agenda a day after an influential health care union in California pledged to go forward with a ballot measure that would impose a one-time 5% tax on the assets of billionaires living in the state as of Jan. 1, 2026.
Newsom opposes that measure, as do many of the liberal interest groups that typically favor higher taxes. They fear it would drive billionaires out of California, eroding the state’s tax base over the long term for a one-time influx of cash. A technology mecca, California has more billionaires than any other state — a few hundred, by some estimates.
“You may not be able to pick up and move to Texas or Florida to shelter your income from taxation, but I promise you that billionaires can, and do,” Newsom wrote. “Wealth is movable, and it shops for the state with the lowest taxes. The fight belongs at the federal level, where this broken system was created in the first place.”
A minimum tax on large net worths
Newsom said the solution is a new national tax policy, rather than a state-by-state system. He proposed a minimum tax on anyone with a net worth above $100 million. He also wants to make it illegal for the wealthy to borrow against their stock portfolios to fund their luxury lifestyles tax free.
Newsom said there should be new rules for inheritance taxes, warning that “the transfer of wealth among the ultra-wealthy will lock in a permanent American aristocracy of inherited wealth.” And he wants to raise corporate tax rates to where they were before President Donald Trump’s first-term tax cut.
READ MORE: Sanders and Newsom clash over proposed tax on California’s billionaires
The need is especially urgent as artificial intelligence threatens to displace workers and further concentrate wealth, he wrote.
“We need to ensure every American owns a stake in the future being built by AI through a national public equity fund that takes a major stake in the new economy,” he wrote. “Simply, as artificial intelligence reshapes the country, every American should own a piece of the future it builds.”
Revenue generated by his proposals could be used to retrain workers, fund universal child care, make college free and increase funding for health care.
‘Money buys influence’
Newsom, who has drawn attention as one of Trump’s most high-profile political antagonists, is getting an early start on laying out a policy framework for his potential White House bid months before the midterm elections, which have typically marked the informal start of overt presidential campaigning.
WATCH: News Wrap: Newsom says Trump ordering DOJ to investigate him and wife
The embrace of a wealth tax by Newsom, a moderate on tax policy despite his liberal reputation, signals a notable shift in the political landscape since Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren struggled to get traction in her 2020 campaign, which she largely centered around a 2% levy wealth tax.
Newsom portrayed the nation’s tax code as a corrupt system built to help an elite few.
“Money buys influence, and influence rewrites the rules,” he wrote. “Those rewritten rules funnel even more wealth to the few. Under this weight, democracy itself starts to buckle.”
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