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.”

A state of emergency was declared in one Southern California city as landslides threaten homes and left hundreds without power.

Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. residents are pleading with city council officials to assist with these growing environmental disasters, according to NBC News, KABC-TV and The Washington Post. The coastal city, which is located 30 miles southwest of central Los Angeles has around 42,000 residents.

“(Sunday), Southern California Edison (SCE) notified the city and 105 out of 270 Seaview homes that their electricity service will be discontinued for varying lengths of time, due to the risk of utility equipment igniting a wildfire and other hazards caused by downed wires or damaged equipment impacted by landslide movement,” the city said in an update on Monday, Sept. 2, according to NBC News.

On Tuesday, Sept. 3, California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency.

Per the Post, 140 homes in the city’s Portuguese Bend neighborhood will be without power indefinitely, and 60 homes in the Seaview neighborhood will not have power for a minimum of one week.

Experts say the landslides follows two years of severe storms and rainfall, per NBC News, and that the Palos Verdes Peninsula the city sits on is composed of clay beds and weak rocks, which can prevent water from draining correctly.

And while the land beneath Rancho Palos Verdes has been moving for hundreds of years, Janice Hahn, a Los Angeles county supervisor, said that “the acceleration that’s happening currently is beyond what any of us could have foretold,” according to ABC News.

Per CNN, council member David Bradley said that “the movement has accelerated dramatically over the last 12 months, where some areas are moving up to 10 inches a week.”

“You can almost see the ground move,” Bradley added.

Jonathan Godt, the U.S. Geological Service’s landslides hazards program coordinator, said it can take months or even years for the land to deform after periods of heavy precipitation, per NBC News.

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“For many of those places, it’s not a problem over a human lifespan or even multiple human generations because that’s just a blink of an eye from a geologic perspective,” Godt said. “But, there are instances where a series of heavy rainfall events, or shaking from earthquakes, or other geologic processes going on beneath our feet get those landslides moving again.”

“I think we’re all learning there is no playbook for an emergency like this one,”  Hahn said at a news conference on Monday, Sept. 1, according to The Guardian. “What we do know is many families are struggling, are suffering, are feeling great anxiety about what is happening. They are watching their homes – they are watching their streets – crumble around them.”

At least 19 people contracted valley fever, a fungal infection that in rare cases can be fatal, after attending an outdoor music festival in southern California in May, public health officials have reported.

The number of illnesses associated with the five-day Lightning in a Bottle event has almost quadrupled over the last month. Valley fever is caused by inhaling Coccidioides, a fungus endemic to the soil of the US south-west. New research shows that cases of the illness have risen dramatically in recent years.

It typically presents as a mild respiratory illness – most people will not become ill after an exposure – but a small subset of those infected can develop serious, debilitating or long-term problems.

More than 20,000 people attended Lightning in a Bottle, an electronic dance music festival, in Kern county between 22 and 27 May, according to the California department of public health. Nineteen people have confirmed diagnoses of the illness through a voluntary survey, including eight who were hospitalized, the CDPH said in a statement last month.

Valley fever has been increasing in California, particularly in the central area of the state, for years as the climate crisis has rendered the landscape drier and hotter – conditions the fungus favors.

Between March 2000 and February 2021, there were 89,281 reported cases in 17 counties, according to a study published this year. There were 12 times as many incidents across counties in the state in 2018 than in 2000, according to the study. Since 2014 alone, reported cases in the US have almost doubled, and in California they have more than tripled.

There were more than 9,000 cases reported in the state last year, and more than 5,000 preliminary cases reported as of July 2024, the CDPH reported. The state public health department said the increase could be attributed to winter rains following years of drought, increased recognition and testing for the disease, and more “soil disturbance activities” in areas with a high risk.

Coccidioides grows in the dirt but can be become airborne when disturbed and can travel miles away.

Most people do not become ill after exposure to the fungus, but for those who do, experts have said that it is likely very few actually receive a valley fever diagnosis. Of those infected, about 40% of people develop a respiratory illness that can be mild while 1% have more severe outcomes, the Guardian reported in 2022.

The California department of public health warns that the Central valley and central coast may face increased risk of valley fever through fall.

“We’re preparing for another possible increase in valley fever cases in the coming months, and we want Californians to know the signs and symptoms to detect it early,” Dr Tomás Aragón, the state public health officer, said in a statement. “If you have a lingering cough and fatigue, please talk to a doctor about valley fever, especially if you’ve been outdoors in dusty air in the Central valley or central coast regions.”