Shasta County voting machines: An accusation of 'staged chaos' rings out at tense meeting

During a tense meeting on Tuesday in which Shasta County Board of Supervisors Chair Patrick Jones claimed the registrar of voters misled officials on the dais into buying voting machines that can also electronically count ballots, he was confronted by a resident who had had enough.

“This really does appear to me like a staged chaos. I think it’s a staged event where you get a chance to call (Registrar of Voters) Cathy Darling Allen a liar,” said the man, pushing back against Jones' narrative about the board's approval of a contract with Hart InterCivic in April.

The decision to spend $950,000 on the Hart machines came several weeks after Jones, joined by Supervisors Kevin Crye and Chris Kelstrom, voted on Jan. 24 to drop Dominion Voting Systems over unproven claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Since that time, the trio has put its efforts on getting the county to adopt hand count ballots in all elections.

Jones’ allegation that they weren’t told the Hart equipment could tabulate ballots is a bit of a head-scratcher, especially since a staff report for the April 6 meeting when supervisors approved the purchase of Hart machines stated the equipment had the ability to tabulate ballots should the board's plan to hand count votes not pan out.

Scripted or not, board meetings in 2023 have often devolved into political grandstanding and in-fighting as supervisors get chippy with each other and those in the audience.

In recent months, Jones has sometimes lost control of meetings. He has had to clear the meeting chamber more than once for what he’s called disruptive behavior coming from the audience.

Much of the division and chaos that has unfolded at board meetings can be traced to the board majority who leans further to the right and its decision to prematurely terminate the county’s contract with Dominion.

It spurred the effort in District 1 to recall Crye, which is on the March 5, 2024, ballot.

A Second Amendment resolution, a resolution to oppose government COVID health mandates and the recent decision to ask voters whether Shasta County should be governed as a charter county are among other political battles the Jones-led majority have launched.

On these issues, critics say the board majority is attempting to fix a problem that does not exist while artificially creating rancor and chaos at meetings.

When they take the oath of office, supervisors vow to uphold the Constitution, which includes defending the Second Amendment.

There are no state or federal mandates forcing people to wear masks or get a vaccine due to the COVID-19 virus. The state and federal government ended the COVID-19 public health emergency in February and May, respectively.

There is no credible evidence that Shasta County elections are not secure.

Shasta County has done a 1% tally audit of every election since 2018 and has found one mistake, which Joanna Francescut, assistant registrar of voters, has said was determined to be a human error.

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After the recall of District 2 Supervisor Leonard Moty in February 2022 — an election in which Dominion machines tallied the ballots — Darling Allen’s office did a paper audit of the entire recall vote count. There were no mistakes

Former Supervisor Les Baugh, a church pastor and staunch conservative, pointed to the absurdity of it all at a September 2022 board meeting after hours of comments from local election deniers’ claims of fraud in the November 2020 presidential election.

“This county (voted for) President (Donald) Trump. Why you want to contest that as a conservative county, I have no idea," Baugh said at the Sept. 13, 2022, meeting.

Meanwhile, problems like the homeless crisis, crime, reopening a floor of the jail and the need for a new jail have commanded relatively less attention.

“This is a big, fat nothing burger. I want you to focus on health care, jobs. This should not be on the agenda,” county resident Joshua Brown said Tuesday, referring to the Hart voting machine item.

Supervisors did start asking more questions about efforts to reopen a floor of the jail, but that was after a consortium of law enforcement and elected officials from Anderson, Redding and Shasta Lake told them during a public board meeting that it was time to make reopening the jail a top priority.

A month later, Sheriff Michael Johnson announced a plan to reopen the closed floor by Thanksgiving.

David Benda covers business, development and anything else that comes up for the USA TODAY Network in Redding. He also writes the weekly "Buzz on the Street" column. He’s part of a team of dedicated reporters that investigate wrongdoing, cover breaking news and tell other stories about your community. Reach him on X, formerly Twitter @DavidBenda_RS or by phone at 1-530-338-8323. To support and sustain this work, please subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: Shasta voting machines: An accusation of staged chaos at tense meeting