Patty Plumb speaks during a press conference near the Shasta County Elections Office off Placer Street in downtown Redding on Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024. Supervisor Patrick Jones is shown at right. Photo by Mike Chapman for A News Cafe
Three weeks after the November general election, a vocal faction of Shasta County residents wants everyone to believe the results can’t be trusted.
Ditch the vote-counting machines and start over, this group says, but this time, tally the more than 78,000 ballots by hand.
Election activist Patty Plumb, who helped organize a noontime protest of about 30 people in downtown Redding on Tuesday, pushed the idea of holding a gathering inside the Redding Civic Auditorium for a fresh, manual count.
Set up a ton of tables, serve pizza, have cameras and security, and let Shasta County become an example for the rest of the country, Plumb says.
“Have 100 tables out there and we can count all of our ballots together. We could have pizza delivered. It would all happen in maybe one or two days, but we can do this,” she said.
“We may even lead the nation in a way to provide a single free and fair election,” Plumb added.
Tuesday’s gathering near the Shasta County Elections Office also had its share of drama.
Benjamin Nowain and his wife, Jenny O’Connell-Nowain, crashed the demonstration with a shouting counterprotest of their own.
Counterprotester Jenny O’Connell-Nowain, left, interrupts a press conference while Patty Plumb, center, speaks near the Shasta County Elections Office off Placer Street in downtown Redding on Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024. Photo by Mike Chapman for A News Cafe
The two longtime observers of local county government interrupted the gathering with vocal clashes as tensions rose and Plumb continued to talk on a loudspeaker.
“I kind of expected this,” Plumb said as she was drowned out at times.
Nowain said in an interview that he believes the election critics are themselves “gaming the political system” and created the circumstance that brought about a machine ballot-reading problem.
While Plumb is a member of the Shasta County Elections Commission, she said Tuesday that she was representing herself.
Benjamin Nowain, right, makes a point during his counterprotest on Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024, while a demonstrator who gave his first name as Clay holds a sign near the Shasta County Elections Office off Placer Street in downtown Redding. Shasta County Supervisor Patrick Jones is pictured at far left. Photo by Mike Chapman for A News Cafe
Plumb and fellow protesters, which included the presence of outgoing District 4 Supervisor Patrick Jones, believe the Hart InterCivic voting machines are inaccurate and can be manipulated.
Shasta County acquired the Hart equipment after the Shasta County board’s far-right majority voted 3-2 to get rid of long-trusted machines made by Dominion Voting Systems.
Further sowing this group’s distrust is the ballot issue involving a printing overspray that requires further examination by election workers.
“The identified problem is an issue with ink overspray on some ballots that is preventing our election equipment from processing those ballots,” the elections office described in an Oct. 30 press release.
The office, led by Registrar of Voters Tom Toller, said the printing abnormality can’t be seen with the naked eye and wasn’t detected in pre-election testing. A percentage of those tainted ballots were printed for the county by Runbeck Election Services.
“To ensure every vote is counted, we will review all affected ballots and duplicate ballots so they can be processed. This procedure is outlined in California Law and requires more steps but maintains the integrity of the election, and all steps will be carefully monitored to ensure accuracy and transparency,” the office said.
Plumb says this development is reason enough to constitute a state of emergency that requires a hand count.
She says Assembly Bill 969, a state law that mandates machine counts for elections with more than 1,000 registered voters, carries a provision that allows for hand counting.
“An elections official may conduct a manual vote count in the event of a natural disaster or other state of emergency in which use of a certified voting system is not feasible,” the law says.
Plumb alleges the Hart machines are not matching up, leading to confusion by observers on her side who already distrust the system. She goes as far as to suggest a re-vote is needed for the Nov. 5 local election.
“All we want to do is present this information to the public so people will understand that things are not OK here. Everyone’s saying everything’s fine. (ROV) Tom Toller is saying everything is fine. We’ve seen ourselves. It is very confusing,” Plumb said.
“I’m thinking that we may have to have a new election,” she added.
Plumb questioned why Shasta County should trust a state-controlled election.
“Why can’t it be county controlled? Why do we trust a corporate-controlled election? Why do we trust an election that we know that could possibly be manipulated by China?” she said.
Plumb said election observers who agree with her say “something is not right.”
“We have seen stuff, suspicious activity through the windows and just beyond our view – not always sure what we’re seeing, but it gives us a very sick feeling to our stomach and it’s not OK,” Plumb said to the gathering.
A representative of the county elections office on Tuesday said Toller wasn’t immediately available for comment. The office plans to present an updated ballot count late Wednesday afternoon.
Meanwhile, Nowain believes Tuesday’s protest looked more like a hostile takeover in addition to an attack on the elections office.
“I feel like I’m representing a lot of Shasta County that is afraid to come out and speak,” he said while protesters carried signs next to the busy intersection at Placer and Market streets.
Protesters calling for a hand count of Shasta County ballots hold signs near the Shasta County Elections Office off Placer Street in downtown Redding on Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024. Photo by Mike Chapman for A News Cafe
Nowain is a former county employee who says he was fired after making a whistleblower complaint. He’s also a contributor to A News Cafe.
He contends the county wouldn’t have had a ballot-counting problem involving the ink overspray if it had kept its Dominion voting machines.
Nowain said the issue can be traced back to election-denying protesters who supported the Board of Supervisors when it switched to the Hart tabulators now in use.
“The irony is, is the situation that we’re in, they caused this,” he said.
“The board majority got rid of Dominion, which wouldn’t have had these Runbeck errors,” he said. “Now they’re claiming this issue is now evidence of fraud and that the process to correct it is more evidence of fraud, which none of that makes any sense to me.”
Tables and boxes are set up inside the Shasta County Elections Office off Placer Street in downtown Redding on Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024. County elections workers are performing a 1 percent manual tally of the Nov. 5 election that’s open for public viewing and is being live-streamed on Facebook. Photo by Mike Chapman for A News Cafe
Nowain described the situation as “a matter of gaming the political system to kind of gain points” and singled out Supervisor Jones.
“That’s kind of par for the course for Patrick Jones, and I think this is sort of his last stand to get a message out while he still has power,” Nowain said.
He compares the Shasta County election disbelievers to national conspiracy promoters such as Mike Lindell, Kari Lake and Clint Curtis.
“All these individuals have been proven wrong in court – thrown out over and over again,” he said.
Nowain likens the county’s election deniers as fake news and using their platform to influence public support.
“They’re gaming the court of public opinion because the court of public opinion doesn’t have to be fair. It just has to be who’s the loudest and who brings the most people,” he said.
In another development, Plumb announced a press conference and a State of New California town hall at the Redding Library for the afternoon of Dec. 2, the same week when county elections officials statewide are required to certify election results.
“That’ll be our last opportunity to gather together to get a remedy,” Plumb said. “We want a solution.”
