Just 64 people live in the smallest county in the US, but over 100 people can vote in its elections.
Loving County, Texas, has been dogged by political drama and allegations of voting irregularities for generations.
Later this year, an election will be repeated. The results were originally supposed to come out in 2022.
Steve Simonsen, the county attorney, told the Daily Mail: ‘Is it somewhat disruptive? Certainly, but that’s the deal.
‘It’s not the first time that it’s happened in this county like that. It won’t be the last.’
Loving County, where literally every vote counts, is loaded with oil money.
The tiny Texan community stretches 680 square miles, just south of the New Mexico border. It is almost completely isolated.
Simonsen said: ‘The nearest movie theater is 110 miles, the nearest grocery store is 25 miles. If you really want to go to a big grocery store, it’s another hundred miles.
Loving County Judge Skeet Lee Jones poses in front of the Loving County Court House in Mentone, Texas
A flare burns excess natural gas in the Permian Basin in Loving County, Texas in this 2019 file photo
Loving County is sparsely populated but it has one of the highest per-capita incomes thanks to its booming oil industry
Steve Simonsen, the county attorney, spoke to the Daily Mail about what life is like in Loving County
‘There’s a reason why there’s so few people in this county. It’s pretty desolate.’
However, Loving County’s budget for next year will be around $60million – a stark contrast to its approximate $2million in 2008.
Everyone wants a bite, but the only way to have one is by holding office.
Simonsen said: ‘Oil has come back since they came up with fracking. How long that lasts, who knows?’
The lights in nighttime Loving County can parallel those of Austin or Dallas, but it’s not because of skyscrapers or bustling city streets.
It is due to the abundance of oil activity in the area, which can even feel dangerous.
Travel blogger Jeff Vaughan, who has visited Loving County, told the Daily Mail: ‘We were in an SUV and it was even harrowing during the day. Fast moving, big oil field trucks. Big equipment.’
He described the experience as ‘a whole bunch of rigs that are way bigger than you’ driving on ‘terrible’ roads.
The sun is seen behind a crude oil pump jack in the Permian Basin in Loving County, Texas in this 2019 file photo
Loving County is the least populated county in the US. The sparse landscape is seen above
Loving County’s population was last estimated at 64, according to the 2020 US Census. Most of its county positions pay $126,000 per year.
County judge Skeet Lee Jones determined that salary raise when the oil started flowing in, but that decision now stands as ‘the biggest mistake I ever made’, he told Rolling Stone.
Jones’s family runs most of Loving County, where residency has almost perennially been a salient issue.
After all, there are more voters in the county than there are residents.
This murkiness is due to Texas election laws, which state that a person’s residence is ‘one’s home and fixed place of habitation to which one intends to return after any temporary absence’.
Voters cannot vote in two separate counties; however, they can choose to vote in the county they intend to return to – even if the later date is totally unspecified.
This gray area allows people to hold and wield power in Loving County, but it also culminated in the arrest of three local officials.
In 2022, then-Justice of the Peace Amber King had Matthew Jones, Ysidro Renteria and William L. Jones Carr arrested for contempt of court after allegedly lying about their places of residency.
Loving County’s only town is Mentone. Mentone’s biggest attraction is the town’s small courthouse in the town, which was built in 1935
Sam’s eatery, which is open Monday to Saturday from 7am to 7pm, specializes in a variety of Louisiana-inspired dishes
They had all been summoned for jury duty, upon which King had reportedly read aloud that the requirements included being a resident of Loving County.
Jones was Skeet’s son, while Carr was his nephew. The county judge had also been arrested days earlier on charges related to livestock theft.
King allegedly held grudges against the Jones family – and Renteria, a county commissioner, was an ally.
He lived in an address where eleven 11 were registered to vote, but then-county sheriff Chris Busse told NBC News in 2022 there had ‘never, ever, ever been any of the Renterias – not even Ysidro – occupying it’.
Jones, Renteria and Carr later sued King and Busse, but they were shielded by judicial immunity.
In his majority opinion, the judge Don Willett described the stakes on the line in Loving County: ‘Sitting atop some of the nation’s richest oil and gas reserves, this patch of West Texas – where pump jacks outnumber people – has long been home to bitter feuds among powerful families vying for political control over a massive tax base swollen by sky-high land values.’
That same year, three races in Loving County were closely contested.
Susan Hays, an Austin attorney, was asked to investigate the election for Justice of the Peace, County District Clerk and County Commissioner in Precinct 2.
Skeet Lee Jones, the Loving County Judge, checks one of his petroleum pump-jacks for maintenance in Mentone, Texas, in this April 2007 file photo
Loving County’s only town is Mentone that was established in 1931
There are many abandoned buildings in Mentone, such as this old gas station
She claimed that votes had been moved into Loving County.
‘People who don’t live there vote there,’ Hays told NewsWest 9. ‘When we were serving these disputed voters with their subpoenas to come to trial, we had to serve them in places as far away as Amarillo, Lubbock and Fort Worth because that’s where they really live.’
She explained the supposed strategy: ‘Someone’s worried about the reelection, so they call up their relatives and ask them to register in Loving County and vote there even though they know full well the relative lives in Lubbock or Montgomery or some other place far away.’
Looking towards 2026, a new arrival to Loving County is looking to reap the benefits of what Hays described.
Dr. Malcolm Tanner, who describes himself as an ‘entrepreneur, philanthropist, educator and federal politician,’ posted a video of himself in Loving County across his social media accounts.
He said: ‘If you want to get home and stop paying rent, your mortgage or even them taxes on it, we’re going to build you a home right here, for free.
‘We’re looking to have 100 homes out here with the intentions of putting [down] 2,000. If you’re ready, say yes in the chat.’
On September 16, Tanner posted a video on TikTok saying he would ‘bring 10,000 people here’ and ‘win every election.’
Loving County has a population of just 64 residents according to 2020 U.S. Census data
The county has been marked by political drama and allegations of voting irregularities for decades
Tanner, who has more than 300,000 followers online, recently purchased two parcels in the remote county, according to public records.
Locals also reported ‘unfamiliar faces around the Loving County courthouse,’ according to The Houston Chronicle.
Simonsen, the county attorney, acknowledged Tanner’s plan had caught his eye: ‘Their eventual aim is to, as he has said many times, take over Loving County.’
To succeed, Tanner might only need about 75 votes, Simonsen said.
