It was cold and constantly drizzling in Redding on the last day of polling for the March primary election. Issues surrounding voting, democracy and local control were front and center in the minds of most.
NSPR spoke with voters in Shasta County about their top concerns in this election.
Measure D: charter county proposal
Several voters cited a measure that would designate Shasta as a charter county as one of the main issues that brought them to the polls.
Charter counties are allowed to make limited policy changes that usually are decided by the state. In Shasta County’s case, the proposed charter would allow the board of supervisors to appoint a new member, or call for a special election to fill a vacant seat on the board. Supporters of the measure wanted to make sure that decision would not fall to Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Some voters hope that becoming a charter county will help local politics reflect the needs of the area.
“I think that if we vote to have specific people, that they should have the right to decide for our area. Not Newsom,” said Ashley Crumb.
Others like Michelle Miner, who opposed the charter measure, worry it could increase tensions between the county and state governments.
“I don't think that the county should supersede what the state is doing,” she said. “That sounds like a recipe for civil war and other types of disaster.”
Tensions between the county and the state rose last year after the board of supervisors terminated its contract with Dominion Voting Systems and began pursuing a hand-counted manual tally of election ballots. This was in response to unfounded claims of voter fraud in the county.
Shortly after, the state passed Assembly Bill 969, which banned manual tallies in elections with more than 1,000 registered voters.
Supervisor District 1 recall: Will Kevin Crye keep his seat?
The issue of election integrity and the supervisors who called that integrity into question were also pivotal issues for voters in Shasta County’s District 1, where Supervisor Kevin Crye, who voted to end the county’s voting system contract, is facing a recall.
Crumb voted for Crye in the last election and voted against his recall. She said it was her number one issue this year.
“I wanted him to be elected to serve for us,” Crumb said. “And I feel like it's pretty cruddy that he gets elected, and then some people don't like that and they decide to do a recall on him. He didn't do anything illegal.”
Voters who did vote to recall Crye, like Jessica French, cited ongoing friction in the county around the way elections are held.
“What turned the tables for me was when he decided to vote with the rest of them to get rid of the Dominion voting machines,” French said. “It was just chaos, there was no thought to it.”
Observing the election process
French said other residents' distrust of the system led her to visit the elections office downtown during the final hours of polling. California residents have the right to observe the election process at designated locations. But French didn't go to observe the election — she went to observe the other observers.
“I trust the system here,” she said. “But I know that there are people that don't. I just wanted to help people feel at ease and not be so stressed out.”
She wasn’t the only person observing the election in case tensions rose. Nathan Blaze said he was there for the same reason.
“Especially in the last couple of elections we've had, there have been a number of people who have tried to come out and harass our election staff, intimidate them,” Blaze said. “I feel that I'm someone that can come and observe those people and display their behavior [by posting online about it] so that they don't do that. And then they allow the election staff to actually do their job.”
Despite the tension, local election officials say they are committed to doing their jobs and ensuring a fair and free election. They now have just under 30 days to count, verify and audit ballots and send their results to the California Secretary of State’s Office.
As of the latest preliminary results Wednesday afternoon, both the recall of Kevin Crye and Measure D were close, each having about 53% of counted votes in favor.
