A California GOP official has walked back claims he made months ago about dead people voting in Marin County. The chairman of the Marin County Republican Party, John Turnacliff, appeared before the county’s Board of Supervisors this past week to apologize and retract his allegations after his own research failed to support them.
His apology, however, did not entirely put the matter to rest for some residents online. After an article published by SFGATE about the retraction was shared on the r/California subreddit, some residents said his apology was not enough and called for him to face consequences for making the claims.
The allegations reportedly date back to February, when Turnacliff and other local Republicans raised concerns during a meeting with the Board of Supervisors about people they believed had remained registered to vote after dying. According to SFGATE, Turnacliff claimed at the time that his group had found that 73 deceased people had voted in the previous November’s Proposition 50 special election on redistricting.
The outlet reported that Marin County Registrar of Voters Natalie Adona disputed those findings. Her office investigated the names provided and found only a small number of people on the list who were actually deceased, with no evidence that any of them had voted after their deaths. Some of the people flagged as dead were very much alive.
Months later, Turnacliff returned to the Board of Supervisors with a very different message. “I’m here today to retract that statement I made a few months ago as far as those voters being on the roll. I didn’t find them,” the chairman stated during the meeting.
Turnacliff then apologized to the board and the registrar’s office for the “angst and consternation” his earlier allegations may have caused.
California Redditors’ Reactions to the GOP Official’s Apology
Despite Turnacliff acknowledging that his earlier claims did not hold up, several commenters argued that he should not simply be allowed to go scot-free.
“A guy spearheading false conspiracies apologizes. So. Where’s the compensation to tax payers?” a Redditor asked. “Where is the punishment for the few months they kept up this nonsense? If there is no punishment then how does one learn their lesson?” another questioned.
A third demanded, “Pay for the consequences of your actions,” while a fourth urged, “He should suffer for his sin against the Civil society.”
Some also thought the apology itself was suspicious, claiming that such an admission was out of character for the party. One person commented, “This doesn’t make any sense. What’s the GOP angle to admitting this?” Someone else remarked, “‘GOP’ and ‘apologizes’ are two words rarely heard together.”
SFGATE noted that Turnacliff’s voluntary retraction contrasts with others who have faced legal consequences for false election claims. Former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis, for example, admitted in 2023 that she had made 10 “misrepresentations” about the 2020 presidential election as part of an agreement resolving a disciplinary proceeding against her, which resulted in a public censure.
Months later, after being indicted in Georgia over efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results, Ellis pleaded guilty to a felony charge of aiding and abetting false statements and writings. She was sentenced to five years of probation, 100 hours of community service, ordered to pay $5,000 in restitution, and required to write an apology letter to Georgia residents.
Turnacliff, on the other hand, faced no court order or legal action when he returned to the Marin County board and admitted his own investigation had failed to substantiate his claims.
