Crye, who was first elected in 2022, was challenged by a group of voters who claim he wasted taxpayer money and failed to solve real issues in the county while in office.
Assistant County Clerk Joanna Francescut said during a Thursday press conference that the majority of the ballots from the recall were included in a hand-counted audit.
“When you get through the majority of the ballots and you see that the machine is accurately counting ballots and there isn’t discrepancies, it’s a pretty good idea that the machine is actually counting ballots accurately," she said in response to questions about election security.
Crye declined a request for an interview.
A statement from the recall campaign said, "Crye would do well to take seriously the thousands of his own constituents who don’t agree with what he’s doing or how he’s doing it."
The District 1 supervisor survived the recall with a smaller margin than when he was first elected. In 2022 he won by just 90 votes.
Crye is one of a group of three far-right politicians who have controlled the board of supervisors for over a year.
During the March 5 primary, another of those far-right members, Patrick Jones, was voted out of his seat by an almost 20% margin. His opponent, Matt Plummer, argued the current board failed to get any meaningful work done on issues like homelessness or public safety.
Former Redding Police Lieutenant Allen Long also won the race outright. He’ll be filling the seat for moderate supervisor Tim Garman, who wasn’t able to run because of redistricting. Candidates in races with more than one opponent needed to win 50% of the vote plus one additional vote to avoid a runoff. According to Francescut, Long had just 14 votes over that threshold.
The only seat heading to a runoff in the November election is held by moderate incumbent Mary Rickert, who captured around 40% of the vote. She’ll be running against Corkey Harmon, a local business owner who has said he wants to improve board collaboration.
The newly elected board members will take their seats in January of 2025.
