Election observers Susan Wilson, Susanne Baremore, and Tom Morehouse watch through a window as poll workers process ballots at theShasta County Elections office in Redding, California, on November 7, 2023. This story is a collaboration with Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S.
It’s taken a toll. Darling Allen, 55, had no history of heart problems. But in November, she was diagnosed with heart failure. Doctors say stress was a factor, and told her that in order to stay alive, she would have to. She went on medical leave in December and officially retired as the county’s registrar of voters in early May, two years before her latest term was scheduled to end.
“We are in the third grade,” whispered Joanna Francescut, Darling Allen’s deputy, who began to lead the department in her absence. “This isn’t a big city. We can’t just stop talking to each other,” said lifelong resident Jenny O’Connell, who comes to the board of supervisors meetings each week and begs for civility. “‘Oh, gee, I’d love for my kid to go, but those other kids are there. I’d love to go to dinner, but the wrong people own that restaurant.’ It’s going to start breaking down our economy.”
When O’Connell approached the microphone at a supervisors meeting the following week, she was in tears, struggling to get the words out. Poll workers process ballots at the Shasta County Elections office in Redding, California on November 7, 2023.Photo by Fred Greaves for CalMattersin a county of Shasta’s size. Jones pressed it anyway, championing the establishment of an election commission to investigate voter fraud, which has been roiled since its inception by.
“The thing with Patrick, I think,” said District 1 Supervisor Kevin Crye, who supports Jones and credits him with his own entry to politics, “is that sometimes he has two different experiences, combines them, and tells them as one story.” And even though her deputy, Francescut, has stepped in as the registrar since she went on leave, Darling Allen finds Jones still looms large. The waitress who served Darling Allen her salt-free breakfast thanked her “for her service” and apologized for her treatment before asking when the results of Jones’ race would be announced.
When those results came before the board of supervisors in early April, Jones announced he had no intention of certifying the election. His gripes were many and varied: Francescut, following in Darling Allen’s footsteps, had violated vaguely described laws. He described rules for auditing results, which appeared to have no basis in state law, that were also violated. He was confident, he said, that the rest of the supervisors would agree that the results were so flawed as to be invalid.
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