In red California, election deniers rant about fraud and promise they won’t go away

A chilly rain poured outdoors as Patty Plumb stood earlier than the Shasta County Board of Supervisors on election day and — with a heat smile and a chipper voice — warned that the native voting system is rigged.

Plumb had carried out a “citizen’s audit” of the native voting rolls a couple of months in the past, knocking on doorways in the hunt for fraud.

Useless individuals had solid ballots, she insisted, together with individuals who didn’t stay within the county. Then there have been the digital voting machines, which Plumb claimed are all related to the web and simply hacked by nefarious individuals.

“The machines should be turned off, unplugged, melted down and became jail bars,” Plumb, 61, mentioned in an interview.

The midterm elections got here to this bitterly divided nation with a storm of conspiracy theories, bolstered by former President Trump and fanned by allies who assist his lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

On this principally rural Northern California county — the place Trump beat President Biden by 33 proportion factors — native election officers and ballot employees have felt threatened and below siege. The break up is just not a lot crimson versus blue however conventional conservative versus far-right.

“We’re drained. Down-to-the bones drained,” mentioned Cathy Darling Allen, the Shasta County clerk and registrar of voters, who has been harassed and vilified by election deniers.

And so, it was thought-about a aid — a victory, to some — that election night time right here got here and went peacefully, with out violence or intimidation.

However the conspiracy theories in regards to the validity of voting, and the focusing on of the elections workplace, received’t cease any time quickly, in response to each Allen and native election deniers themselves.

Through the June main election, somebody hung a path digicam — the sort hunters use to trace wildlife — within the alley behind the county registrar’s workplace to watch elections employees.

Non-public ballot watchers trailed volunteers who have been driving ballots from polling places to the county registrar’s workplace in Redding, in some instances following them from neighboring cities.

As votes have been being tallied, Allen heard individuals outdoors the elections workplace monitoring her actions, ticking off what instances she and one other worker had come and gone. Some informed her they slept outdoors all night time to forestall anybody from tampering with ballots.

For the primary time in her 18 years as county registrar, she grew so apprehensive about her employees that she requested Redding police to escort them to their automobiles.

Then in September, Allen mentioned, she discovered of a gaggle knocking on doorways, pretending to be election employees and saying they have been a part of a “voter process power.”

They wore reflective vests. And as an alternative of conducting door-to-door canvassing, they have been driving into neighborhoods, focusing on particular houses and aggressively questioning voters about their registration, Allen mentioned.

Frightened they’d create “a chilling impact on individuals even being registered to vote,” Allen sounded the alarm, placing out information releases that warned of voter intimidation. She alerted authorities.

Members of the group, together with Plumb, known as her a liar. They swore they have been simply candy older individuals out to avoid wasting democracy.

“We’re fairly scary, huh?” mentioned Plumb’s cowboy hat-clad husband, Ronald, 71, outdoors the supervisors’ assembly, the place he insisted that each one elections on this nation have been corrupt for in all probability the final 50 years.

Bert Stead, foreground, heart, and Bev Grey, foreground, proper, are photographed with others in the course of the Pledge of Allegiance in the course of the Shasta County Board of Supervisors common assembly in Redding.

(Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Instances)

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Shasta County, dwelling to 180,000 individuals, has turn into a lightning rod for political discourse in recent times.

Mainstream Republicans have lengthy held energy in native authorities however have been roiled in recent times by a populist flank to their proper, together with members of an area militia, secessionists who want to carve their very own State of Jefferson out of California’s conservative northern counties, and residents livid about coronavirus mandates.

On Jan. 5, 2021 — the day earlier than the lethal siege on the U.S. Capitol — the fad hit a tipping level when residents poured into the Board of Supervisors’ chambers for what was purported to be a digital assembly.

“Flee now when you can,” Timothy Fairfield, of Shingletown, warned the supervisors. “As a result of the times of your tyranny are drawing to a detailed, and the legitimacy of this authorities is waning.

“When the poll field is gone, there may be solely the cartridge field. You might have made bullets costly. However fortunately for you, ropes are reusable.”

This February, ultraconservatives surprised the state’s political institution by recalling Supervisor Leonard Moty, a Republican former police chief, largely as a result of he enforced state-mandated coronavirus restrictions.

Bankrolled by Reverge Anselmo, a former Hollywood filmmaker turned vintner who deserted the county after a bitter land use dispute, they then backed a slate of six males for the June election.

Their candidates have been principally rejected. As votes have been being counted, a gaggle that included militia members and election deniers confirmed up on the previous Montgomery Ward constructing in downtown Redding that homes the elections workplace.

Allen — a registered Democrat who was on the poll herself — mentioned she was peppered with the identical questions in regards to the voting machines and poll safety for hours.

“They didn’t consider that anybody that works right here might be trusted with a poll with out certainly one of them current,” Allen mentioned of the ballot watchers. “For a few of these people, this is sort of a new faith.”

At public conferences, residents usually quote MyPillow chief govt and pro-Trump conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell, ask to crack open and examine the county’s Dominion voting machines, and name Allen a felony.

This week, Allen mentioned she was apprehensive about her employees.

Requested if her household worries for her, Allen mentioned her husband, “an Idaho farm boy,” not too long ago received a hid weapons allow.

Cathy Darling Allen, the Shasta County clerk and registrar of voters, elections workplace in Redding on Monday.

(Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Instances)

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On the county supervisors assembly the morning of the election, speaker after speaker got here to the microphone throughout public feedback to say the vote was going to be rigged.

Susanne Baremore, 53, of Redding, made a counterargument. She mentioned extremism was “infiltrating native politics” and that she believed Shasta County elections are “free and honest and correct.”

As she walked again to her seat, Supervisor Patrick Jones — who has questioned Dominion voting machines and known as for paper recounts of current elections — mispronounced her identify.

When she corrected him, he retorted: “Most of what you say, I extremely disagree with.”

In her public feedback, Patty Plumb mentioned she had submitted the outcomes of her group’s residents’ audit to the Shasta County sheriff — proof, she mentioned, of rampant voter fraud.

With a smile, she warned that Shasta County Sheriff Michael Johnson could be criminally complicit in election malfeasance if he doesn’t act.

“This provides our sheriff the chance to do the best factor,” Plumb mentioned. “And if individuals don’t do the best factor? Um, sadly, the sheriff might be in jail … We don’t need that to occur to Michael. We like him.”

Plumb informed The Instances that she and her husband traveled to Missouri in August to attend Lindell’s “Second of Fact” summit, the place he unfold unfounded claims about voter fraud.

Lindell exhorted his followers to acquire “solid vote information” — huge spreadsheets generated by voting machines — to hunt for fraud. That’s precisely what Plumb and the Shasta County citizen auditors did.

Redding resident Michael Sullivan, 83, makes his method to the Shasta County Clerk & Elections workplace in Redding, to put his poll inside a drop field on Monday.

(Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Instances)

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Regardless of the bluster that morning, election day proceeded easily. Some voters, each conservative and liberal, mentioned they nonetheless consider within the system.

After casting his poll at Redding Metropolis Corridor, Charlie Tuggle laughed when requested if he believed his vote could be precisely counted. Sure, he mentioned, unequivocally.

“I’m a constitutionalist conservative libertarian,” mentioned Tuggle, 41, a welder fabricator. “I don’t put on a tinfoil hat.”

He voted for Republican State Sen. Brian Dahle over Gov. Gavin Newsom and is uninterested in the state’s liberal politics and excessive taxes — however the conspiracy theories aren’t useful, he mentioned.

After casting her poll together with her husband and 18-year-old son, who voted for the primary time, Lorrie Forseth known as Shasta County’s misinformation-laden politics embarrassing.

“It doesn’t characterize who we actually are,” mentioned Forseth, a 56-year-old Democrat who was born and raised right here. “Once we really feel involved to say the place we’re from due to the politics, it’s disheartening.”

On the county registrar’s workplace that night time, election employees ready for a melee.

With a particular allow from the town, they blocked off an alleyway behind the constructing the place volunteers dropped off ballots from totally different precincts — the identical place the place somebody hung the path digicam and accosted ballot employees in June.

Just a few sheriff’s deputies have been stationed across the constructing.

5 minutes earlier than polls closed, Cheryl McKinley, the 70-year-old chair of the Democratic Ladies’s Membership of Shasta County got here bearing pizza and indicators that learn: “We [Heart] the Shasta County Elections Dept!”

She affixed an indication to Gryffin, her 6-year-old Tibetan spaniel and posted up outdoors the vote tabulating room in a sweatshirt that learn: “READ!”

“In June, there was haranguing of Cathy Darling Allen, and we’re hoping to face right here and be sure that doesn’t occur once more,” she mentioned.

And — it didn’t.

When Allen yelled, “The polls are closed!” at precisely 8 p.m., volunteers cheered.

Outdoors, the place it was 41 levels, Richard Gallardo, who was dropping his bid to affix the Shasta County Board of Training, demanded to be let within the closed alleyway to maintain tabs on election employees.

In 2020, Gallardo introduced at a county assembly that he was inserting the entire supervisors below citizen’s arrest. Sheriff’s deputies escorted him out, and no officers have been jailed.

On social media this week, Gallardo implored ballot watchers to take photos of information printed by voting machines to search for false data.

As he tried to push previous the barricades within the alley, somebody known as the cops.

The large group of ballot watchers by no means materialized. Gallardo stood within the rain with a good friend, muttering.