A conservative California county is trying to kill mail-in voting

Northern California’s Shasta County, best known for its radical conservative politics and thriving election-skeptic movement, appears on track for another clash with the state over a newly approved ballot measure that would transform local elections.In last Tuesday’s election, the majority of voters in the rural county backed Measure B, which requires elections to be held in person on a single day and limits who can cast an absentee ballot – effectively putting an end to vote by mail – while also requiring photo ID and a hand count.The proposed changes outlined in the measure would make it harder for residents to vote – about 85% of county residents cast their ballots by mail – and also appear to violate California law, according to the California" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="144032" data-entity-type="organization">American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and the local and state chapters of the League of Women Voters.“Measure B also plainly violates state law and exposes county taxpayers to significant litigation costs – all in pursuit of a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist,” a statement from the organization reads.“We should be preserving options for eligible voters to cast their ballots – not erecting needless barriers that will infringe upon our right to vote in Shasta County.”The California attorney general’s office, meanwhile, said it is “closely monitoring the Measure B results and, if necessary, stand ready to take appropriate action to protect voters’ rights and enforce state election laws”.Shasta County, home to about 182,000 people in the state’s far north, has been at war over the future of its elections, and how they should be conducted, since the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election.A small but vocal band of activists convinced of widespread voter fraud turned their focus to the local elections office, alleging local contests had been rigged and voting was not secure. Some election officials repeated and promoted those accusations, despite the fact that they had won their elections.In 2022, the former registrar of voters told a US Senate committee that activists had weaponized election observation activities and that she and staff faced interference and bullying. Numerous staff left the office. For the last year, the office has been overseen by Clint Curtis, an election skeptic who was new to running elections and alleged his predecessors had previously rigged them. He supported Measure B.Shasta’s governing body cut ties with Dominion Voting Systems, the voting machine company at the center of baseless conspiracy theories about election fraud, in 2023. The effort drew support from prominent election deniers such as the MyPillow CEO, Mike Lindell. The board of supervisors moved to enact a hand-count system that experts warned would be costly and far less accurate, but the state ultimately thwarted that plan by passing a law banning manual tallies in most cases.But Measure B appears to resurrect part of that effort. It comes amid a new wave of conspiracy theories around voting in California that has surged since last week’s election. The outcome for some of the most-watched races, including the contests for governor and Los Angeles mayor, were not known until this week thanks to California’s notoriously thorough, but slow, processing time for ballots and huge numbers of voters who hung on to their ballots until election day.Donald Trump accused the state, without evidence, of election rigging. Spencer Pratt, who did not advance to the runoff election for Los Angeles mayor, suggested that one of this opponents had rounded up a cohort of unhoused people to vote for her.Meanwhile, the US justice department sent a federal prosecutor to observe ballot processing in Los Angeles, and Bill Essayli, the Trump-appointed first assistant US attorney for the central district of California, announced that his office and the FBI’s Los Angeles office had “multiple election fraud investigations under way”.In Shasta County, Measure B is on track to pass with more than 55% of the vote. The overwhelming majority of voters who approved it, 88%, themselves voted by mail. The measure is at odds with multiple state elections laws, including statutes that prevent local governments from creating and enforcing laws that require voters to provide ID in order to cast their ballots.The passage of the measure is a victory for the activists who have been campaigning to transform Shasta’s elections for more than half a decade, but it came amid other losses. Curtis, the registrar of voters, was ousted by voters in favor of Joanna Francescut, who had 17 years experience in the office before Curtis fired her after starting the role. His tenure had been marked by challenges including allegations that he had created a hostile work environment and made violent threats against workers. Curtis has publicly denied those claims.The offices of the California secretary of state and the Shasta County registrar of voters did not immediately respond to a request for comment.