海角大神

There was a time when Butte County in northern California measured things in rushes. The Gold Rush in 1848. An agricultural boom that started five years later when Judge Joseph Lewis had an orange tree planted. (It鈥檚 still there.) Now, this region models a different pace. In the state鈥檚 primary last week, voters in the county cast 41,000 ballots. Only two were marked in person. Nearly all the rest came by mail. A week later, county election workers are still counting 鈥� as they are throughout the state. Critics say mail ballots undermine election integrity. But in the trickling, meticulous process of counting them, Keaton Denlay sees the cultivation of a civic good. 鈥淭alk to the average reasonable person,鈥� the Butte County registrar of voters told our reporter Sophie Hills, 鈥渢hey trust their local government for the most part.鈥澛�