Marin GOP’s new leadership dominated by ‘election integrity’ faction

A group of Marin Republicans who say the nation’s election integrity has been breached has taken control of the local GOP party.

Running as a slate, 15 members of the group were elected to the local party’s 21-member central committee in the March 2024 Republican primary, giving them supermajority representation.

But it wasn’t until last month that the organization’s new leadership took the helm.

Four of those elected, including Drouillard and the party’s new chair, John Turnacliff, previously had their committee seats taken away from them by the party’s former leaders.

Drouillard said Turnacliff was expelled in January 2023. “They accused him of moving from his district, which he did not do,” Drouillard said.

Ronald Elijah and William McLaughlin also had their seats taken away.

The election was a showdown between the two factions. All four men who had been expelled were reelected to the central committee along with 11 other candidates who ran as part of their slate. The leaders of the old guard, Jack Wilkinson, the party’s former chair, and Tom Montgomery, the party’s former vice chair, also won reelection.

In January, the new committee members assembled to elect new officers, but Wilkinson, who was still in charge, adjourned the meeting and left before a vote could be taken after the insurgents insisted on recording the meeting.

“They were demanding people’s names, phone numbers and emails at the door. It was like the Gestapo back in the 30s,” Montgomery said.

The new committee members reconvened the meeting in Wilkinson’s absence and elected officers anyway. Turnacliff said the vote was later invalidated by state GOP officials after Wilkinson registered a complaint. A second vote was taken and new officers appointed last month. Drouillard was elected treasurer.

Drouillard said the Marin Election Integrity Committee began as an ad hoc subcommittee within the Marin GOP. “Then, at the end of 2022, they didn’t renew it, so we ended up starting our own committee,” he said.

Montgomery said, “They came out with a report, and we gave them the opportunity to present the report. They chose not to. They claimed we didn’t give them enough time. After that, they went on a witch hunt against all of us.”

The two sides have filed dueling lawsuits against each other.

Drouillard said one of the first actions of the new leadership has been to re-establish the election integrity committee as a permanent standing committee of the Marin GOP. Chris Carpiniello, who headed the committee before it left the party, has been named to oversee its return.

“I’ll go on record as saying I believe wholeheartedly that that election was rigged,” Carpiniello said of the 2020 presidential election.

Carpiniello said he is encouraged by the efforts of United Sovereign Americans, a Missouri group that has filed lawsuits in at least nine states challenging state voter rolls.

In October, members of the Marin Election Integrity Committee sued Marin County Registrar of Voters Lynda Roberts and California Secretary of State Shirley Weber. The suit alleged that Roberts and Weber failed to remove ineligible voters from registration rolls.

Judge Charles Breyer of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled in favor of the elections officials.

“Plaintiffs failed to persuade the court that their desired injunction would serve the public interest — particularly as plaintiffs have failed to show that the election process is fundamentally unfair,” Breyer wrote.

Both Wilkinson and Montgomery have resigned from the central committee, although they share their successors’ admiration for President Donald Trump. Three other people elected to the central committee in March have also resigned, including the party’s former secretary and treasurer.

“I don’t think we have the problems in Marin that some of those people think we have, but that’s up to them to find it,” Wilkinson said. “If you have proof of it, show it, that’s all I’m asking.”

Montgomery said, “There are probably some problems in some places. Are they as bad as some people claim they are? No. I don’t think there is the fraud they claim is going on.”

Marin County has 22,127 registered Republicans, or 12.7% of the county’s total registered voters. That compares with 107,551 registered Democrats and 33,355 independents. The new leadership hopes to improve on that.

“We’re trying to do different things to engage more people, make a more welcoming situation,” Turnacliff said.

The party’s new website, maringop.com, urges support for West Marin ranchers who recently agreed to take buyouts rather than continue to battle in court with environmental organizations suing to have them expelled from the Point Reyes National Seashore.

“We’re taking positions on local issues,” Drouillard said. “We really want to make it clear we’re an opposition party. We want people to hear from us what we think about issues instead of letting Democrats define us.”

The party also wants to field more competitive local candidates. Turnacliff said he expects Republicans to compete for two open seats in the Legislature representing Marin County in 2026.

But Andy Podshadley, a Novato businessman who ran as a Republican for the Assembly seat representing Marin in the last two elections said, “Marin’s GOP central committee is now super far right.”

“If I were to run again, I would not run as a Republican. I’d run as an independent,” he said.