As a devoted Republican who runs a cattle ranch and proudly talks about owning a gun, Shasta County Supervisor Mary Rickert is an unlikely progressive icon.
But that’s exactly what this devout Catholic and 72-year-old grandmother has become to some residents of this Northern California county — which has been rocked by conspiracy theories about voter fraud and other extremist ideologies over the last three years.
Rickert is still a staunch conservative. But she also emerged as an often lone voice on the oversight board against the far-right insurrection that has rocked her county.
Shasta County District 3 Supervisor Mary Rickert.
(Shasta County)
After an ultra-conservative majority took power in 2022, the board voted to empty the Dominion vote machines in favor of manual counting of ballots. The supervisors adopted a measure allow concealed weapons in local government buildings, in defiance of state law. And they explored hire a California secessionist leader as county executive officer. Rickert, whose personal style tends toward feathered blonde hair and flowing scarves, objected to much of what they did.
On Tuesday, voters in his district, which stretches from Redding to the Cascades and mountain peaks to the east, will decide whether to give him another term. His challenger is local business owner Corky Harmon, who said on his website that he is running to “protect our God-given rights and rural way of life.”
Some county residents say the contest is also about the county’s future political direction.
In recent years, Shasta County has gained national attention for its embrace of election conspiracy theories as well as 2nd Amendment and anti-vaccine causes. Board meetings were disrupted by shouting matches and senior executives were fired or resigned. Meanwhile, election workers say they faced intimidation. In 2022, an unknown person installed a game camera in the alley behind the elections office.
John Deaton joins others in a protest calling for the recall of Shasta County Supervisor Kevin Crye at a rally in Redding.
(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)
But there are signs that the electorate has grown weary of being a poster child for the far right.
Patrick Jones, chairman of the board and gun store owner lost his election in the spring to a more moderate candidate and will leave the board in January. Another retired moderate Redding police lieutenant, Allen Long, was elected to fill a vacant seat.
This means that if Rickert keeps his seat, the far right will likely lose its majority on the board.
County residents say it’s harder to predict what will happen if one’s opponent wins. Harmon stated on his website that his “affiliation is not with any group.” I am not part of any Super Pacs or special interest groups. He did not respond to The Times’ requests for an interview. In public statements he has posted on his website, he has not taken a clear position on many of the hot-button issues that have rocked the county, although he told a local television station that he believed the county had an obligation to “fight back” against certain state laws.
“As a supervisor, we have a duty to fight back, to go to our legislators and say no… This goes against our rights,” he said. “The state is going too far. We all know this is the case, and it causes us grief in many ways… We don’t need to go into all the details.
Doni Chamberlain, local journalist and Rickert supporter whose news site has spent years chronicling the chaos that has ravaged local government, said voters in the county’s Supervisory District 3 face a choice that will define the county. “The future of Shasta County depends on this race,” she said.
But whatever happens in this race, there are signs that some chaos could continue. On Wednesday, the county announced that its new voting machines were failing to properly count ballots.
The county purchased the machines after dropping Dominion and a new state law prevented him from counting by hand. The county also got a new registrar after Cathy Darling Allen, the county’s only elected Democrat, resigned because she had heart failure and needed to relieve stress.
Absentee ballot envelopes are sorted at the Shasta County Registrar of Voters office in Redding in February. Last year, the Shasta County Board of Supervisors voted to remove the county’s ballot counting machines and planned to hold elections with a hand count. The California Legislature then passed a law prohibiting the manual counting of ballots except in special circumstances.
(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)
The new registrar, Tom Toller, said his office discovered “an ink spray issue” that is “preventing our election equipment from processing these ballots.” He said the error was not visible to the naked eye and was not detected during pre-election testing.
Nevada County, which uses the same machines, has a similar problem, he said. He added that it’s unclear how many of the 117,000 ballots his county issued were affected; around 32,500 ballots have already been cast by voters.
Also this week, a Shasta County elections official told the news site CalMatters that he left his job because election observers were crowding the office in an intimidating manner. Some observers are “very angry,” Tanner Johnson said.
“They want to catch us lying, so they’ll try to trick you into saying something,” Johnson said. “Often they will secretly film or record you. »
Toller confirmed that one employee resigned because “he felt the climate surrounding the election was too hostile and he felt threatened by it.” He called it a “big disappointment” because Johnson was a “great employee.”
He added that election observers have “become much more aggressive in pursuing their agenda,” which he said in many cases advocates hand counting, which is illegal.
“Things have become more confrontational,” he said. “The tone is more aggressive.”
Toller said he was hoping for a peaceful election night, but law enforcement was planning patrols and “we have to be ready for anything.”
Shasta County voters overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020, and many expect them to do the same this year. The real election suspense is whether voters will support Rickert or Harmon.
In a video pitch to voters posted on a local television station’s website, Harmon outlined his priorities. He described himself as “a true conservative who believes in local control” and said his values are more in line with the district’s rural voters than Rickert’s.
His video makes no mention of the controversies that have repeatedly placed his county in the national news. He said one of his goals was to end “infighting” among board members and that he was committed to improving public safety.
Rickert, meanwhile, says she is the candidate with the experience to help turn the county around. She said she wants to stabilize the county’s workforce, which has been disrupted by all the disruptions, and ensure that the $39 million the county expects to receive from opioid settlements is well spent.
She said she would have loved nothing more than to retire and spend time with her grandchildren, but she hasn’t found a moderate Republican willing to run.
“I just want to focus on getting our county’s finances back in order,” she said. “This is a pivotal moment in Shasta County’s history. »
