Public Records Cast Cold Water on Heated Election Accusations

FORT BRAGG, Calif. — Political sniping that has played out for weeks on local Facebook pages reached the Fort Bragg City Council's public-comment period on Oct. 26, as candidates and the residents who support them aired accusations of voter-fraud smears, the misuse of a purchased voter roll, and harassment a week before the Nov. 3 election.

Ten people spoke across the two public-comment periods. The council took no action; none of the matters was on the agenda.

Alan Limbird, a dentist who has practiced in Fort Bragg since 2017, told the council that a Facebook page running what he called "a smear campaign on one of our city council candidates" had also targeted him and his wife. The page, he said, accused him of voter fraud by claiming he was registered to vote at a Fort Bragg address where he does not live. That page has primarily targeted Councilwoman Tess Albin-Smith, whom the Limbirds support; they say it turned on them as well.

"This is false. I am registered to vote in Mendocino," Limbird said, holding up what he described as a document from the California Secretary of State confirming his registration at his home outside the city. "Voter fraud is a very serious allegation."

Limbird claimed Mendocino County Registrar of Voters Katrina Bartolomie had traced the post to a voter roll that Vice Mayor Marcia Rafanan purchased on Aug. 10. The registrar, according to Limbird, told Rafanan that posting the roll, or using it for any purpose other than the one it was bought for, was illegal, and directed her to take the post down. "Thank you, Marcia, for taking the post down immediately," Limbird said. "I do not appreciate being attacked like this."

He added that a day before the post appeared, the attorney and frequent council commenter Jacob Patterson had phoned the registrar to report the supposed discrepancy, an account Patterson rejected later in the meeting. Limbird cited sections of the California Elections Code that he said make the misuse of voter data a misdemeanor and false information on a voter application a felony.

Limbird presented much of his account as secondhand, prefacing it with "I have been informed."

For her part, Rafanan denied any involvement in social-media posts. "I don't control what people put on social media," she said. "I don't tell them what to post on social media. I don't employ anybody on social media."

Patterson, when his turn came, denied phoning the registrar about Limbird's registration. He said Limbird's wife, Laura Bianchi Limbird, had confronted and harassed him at City Hall during business hours the previous week. He acknowledged contributing to a negative online climate in past years but said he had not done so in about two years.

What the records show

MendoLocal.News checked the accusations against the public record. What turned up looks less like fraud than a deliberate attempt to raise doubt based on incomplete and inaccurate information: days before the Nov. 3 election, an anonymous Facebook page with a tiny following recast an ordinary situation — a family with more than one home, and more than one address attached to its voter records over the years — as a case of voter fraud. Voter-registration data, county property and recorder's records, and California Secretary of State business filings show no evidence that the Limbirds tried to vote illegally or to deceive anyone. Who runs the page — which had just 58 followers as of Oct. 28 — and who wrote the post could not be determined.

Katrina Bartolomie, the Mendocino County Registrar of Voters, confirmed the sequence that set the dispute in motion. She said Rafanan purchased a voter roll on Aug. 10, and that her office told Rafanan that posting it, or using it for a purpose other than the one it was obtained for, was not permitted. When the registrar learned Rafanan was using the list for a purpose other than the one it was obtained for, she asked that the post(s) be taken down. The post was removed.

On the report about Limbird's registration, Bartolomie's account differed from Limbird's in one respect: she said Patterson emailed her and the Fort Bragg city clerk — not phoned — to flag a suspected discrepancy, and that her reply to Patterson was that "residence addresses are confidential, although I can tell you Mr. Limbird is not registered at the address you provided."

The county's deed database and voter-registration records confirm the rest. The Limbirds own property in Fort Bragg and in Mendocino. Laura Bianchi Limbird holds the single-family home at 461 N. Harrison Street in Fort Bragg, where no homeowner's exemption is claimed. The tax bill is directed to a home on Overton Drive in Mendocino — the address records list as the couple's residence.

Recorder's records trace the Overton Drive home to a 2015 deed, when Alan Limbird acquired it from the estate of a prior owner; it passed through State Street Investments LLC — a company Alan Limbird manages, according to state filings — and, in January 2020, into the couple's family trust. A Mendocino County voter file reviewed by MendoLocal.News — a point-in-time snapshot from early 2025 — lists both Limbirds as active voters registered at the Harrison Street house, with current registrations dating to October 2022 and originals in January 2016. Because that snapshot predates the dispute, it cannot show any later change.

Rafanan's account. Reached for an interview, Rafanan said she purchased the voter-registration database and provided lists drawn from it to campaign volunteers to use in door-to-door canvassing. She said Bartolomie later told her that was not allowed — that she could not loan the data out to others without the registrar's permission — and that she had not known it until then. "I wasn't aware of it until Katrina notified me," Rafanan said. She said she did not provide any of the information to be used on social media, and specifically not for a site that has been set up to target Councilwoman Tess Albin-Smith, echoing the denial she offered at the lectern, where she said she does not control or direct what others post online.

Patterson's account. In response to questions from MendoLocal.News, Patterson gave a more in-depth account of why he contacted the registrar. He said he came across Limbird's registration while canvassing his own Fort Bragg neighborhood. He described the house as almost always unoccupied. He said it is just a few blocks from his own and that he passes it on his regular dog-walking route. He said he emailed Bartolomie to ask how to report a suspected voter-registration discrepancy, and that he did not write the Facebook post that set off the dispute. "I didn't post anything on the Tess Files because I don't control or manage that political Facebook account," he wrote, adding that he had also mentioned the registration to several other people.

Patterson, who has sparred with Laura Bianchi Limbird in online comment threads in this and the last council election, argued that checking the voter roll for potential registration fraud is among its permitted uses, alongside ordinary campaigning — and, he noted, journalism and research. He said he did not think the Facebook post was a good way to raise the issue but considered the underlying question legitimate given Bianchi Limbird's role in local campaigns.

Who operates the Tess Files page is not publicly known, and MendoLocal.News could not determine who runs it. Fewer than 60 people follow the page. MendoLocal.News also could not determine who posted the accusation about Limbird, or how that person obtained data from the roll Rafanan purchased.

The accusation also appears to have rested on outdated information. By the registrar's account, Limbird is not registered at the address the post cited — so its central claim, that he is registered where he does not live, did not match the current rolls.

The difference is accountability. Social media lets an anonymous account publish an unverified accusation of a crime — here, built on stale voter records — and face little consequence. People do not distinguish between valid fact-checked news and politically motivated information, and the Facebook itself is legally shielded for what its users post — unlike newspapers on the past. Anonymous authors can still be held accountable by registering defamation with Facebook, but they are harder to pin down.

Solid journalism does not work that way. A newsroom that printed the same accusation without verifying it can be served with a lawsuit for defamation — which is why researching public records is part of the reporting process at MendoLocal.News.

In a county where second homes and multiple properties are common, the records describe an ordinary situation rather than a scheme: nothing in the property, recorder's, or business records MendoLocal.News reviewed indicates an attempt to vote improperly or to deceive election officials — the elements a voter-fraud accusation would require. What is left is an anonymous post, built on incomplete and out-of-date information and with seeming malicious intent — the kind of accusation that has become synonymous with social media, and the kind a real newsroom would never print.

Correction: An incomplete sentence was fixed: "She said Rafanan purchased a voter roll on Aug. 10, and that her office told Rafanan that posting it, or using it for a purpose other than the one it was obtained for, was not permitted." 12:23 p.m. October 29, 2026