How an ultra-right majority in California’s far north picked a novice to run its elections

Shasta county has made its name as a hotbed of the election-denial movement - and the snubbing of a well-respected election clerk has caused alarm

This is the first of three stories about the run-up to the 2024 US presidential election in Shasta county, a region of 180,000 people in northern California that has emerged as a center of the election-denial movement and a hotbed for far-right politics.

When Shasta county had to search for a new official to oversee its elections earlier this year, there was an obvious candidate.