Residents of one of California’s most conservative counties are bracing for a contentious election, as the community grapples with a thriving election denialism movement that has amplified conspiracy theories about voter fraud and made life increasingly difficult for election workers.
In recent weeks, some residents of Shasta county, home to 180,000 people in the state’s far north, have urged the county not to certify the election results while one official warned that if Donald Trump is “cheated” out of the election, there would be “a price” to pay.
While the US’s attention is on the swing states that will determine the outcome of the race between Kamala Harris and Trump, Shasta county offers a look at how the election denialism movement and extremist politics are affecting communities across the country.
“It’s already been a tense time in Shasta county for the last three to four years,” said Nathan Blaze, a local activist and chef. “It’s just getting more and more divided.”
In recent years, Shasta county has gained notoriety for its far-right politics and embrace of election conspiracy theories.
The county in 2016 and 2020 favored Trump by large margins, and the region became a center of the election denialism movement that falsely claimed Trump did not lose the 2020 presidential race.
Since then, a group of local activists who believe there is widespread voter fraud have been relentless in their efforts to uncover evidence of “tampering” and to remake the voting system.
The group successfully lobbied officials, some of whom have also spread election misinformation, to throw out the county’s voting machines and institute a hand-count system. Their efforts were promoted by leaders in the movement, such as Mike Lindell, but ultimately thwarted by a new state law preventing manual tallies in most elections.
They have kept a close eye on election workers, showing up at the county office to observe the process, and creating an environment that workers say is hostile. Election workers are frequently interrogated about processes and procedures by people who will not be moved to trust in the voting system regardless of what workers say, and they have reported that observers sometimes film or record them.
The elections office has taken additional security measures to protect its workers. But still roughly half of all staff have left in the past year, including one person who reported the office faced harassment from an elected official.
Tanner Johnson, who worked in the office for more than a year, told a local publication, A News Cafe, that working in such difficult conditions took a toll on his mental health and that he feared the office could see violence.
“There’s just been a lot of saber rattling for the last couple of years, and it’s just been ridiculous, with one pissing contest after another,” he told the outlet. “But eventually, someone’s going to actually draw the saber. And I don’t want to be there for that.”
At a rowdy and tense meeting of the county’s governing body last week, the group of residents who have pushed misinformation about elections complained about what they described as a lack of transparency from the elections office and urged officials to “put pressure” on the head of the office.
“You cannot certify the election next Tuesday, no matter what happens because of what’s happening in that office,” one man said.
Some residents told the Guardian that things felt calmer than they had in past elections, but there remains an underlying current of discontent.
Blaze said he planned to visit the elections office on Tuesday evening “to observe the observers and film them so they don’t try to get away with doing something bad”.
He and others have made a point of speaking out against the extremism that has come to define local politics, he said. “We’ve been standing up to these people. “There’s nothing a bully is more afraid of than someone who isn’t [afraid].”
Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage:
US election 2024 live updates: latest polls, results and news
How the electoral college works
Lessons from the key swing states
What’s at stake in this election
