California county on verge of requiring in-person, same-day voting

A controversial Northern California election chief who has been accused of promoting election conspiracy theories and of staff mistreatment could be out of a job following Tuesday’s vote. Clint Curtis, an elections chief in Shasta County, might be voted out of office, preliminary results show. 

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Curtis, the Shasta County registrar of voters, has only 43.59% of the vote, while his opponent, Joanna Francescut, has 56.41% as of the vote as of Thursday afternoon. Francescut perviously worked in the county’s election department for 17 years before Curtis fired her.

While Curtis faces tough votes on his job, voters are set to approve a voter ID law he pushed for. Measure B, an initiative that would require all voting to be held in person (with absentee ballots by request) on a single day and all voters to present a photo identification, is likely to pass with a 55.63% vote as of Thursday afternoon. 

Curtis did not return SFGATE’s request for comment and has not publicly conceded his election. 

Curtis’ office was further embroiled in controversy this week after CalMatters reported that a temporary election staffer allegedly activated a stun gun while waiting to collect ballots Tuesday. The outlet reported that a journalist with the Shasta Scout witnessed one of his staff members set off what appeared to be a stun gun, though the incident has not been confirmed by officials. The Shasta Scout editor, Annelise Pierce, said she saw a worker pull out the device, which made a “loud zapping sound,” while she waited outside the elections office, CalMatters reported, before Curtis came out and took the device from the worker.

The news outlet added that Curtis’ spokesperson said it was “not a Taser” but “a flashlight that made a buzzing noise.”

Curtis, a former attorney in Florida, was appointed by the Shasta County Board of Supervisors in May 2025. The appointment sparked outrage from some county residents over his lack of prior experience in elections offices and his promoting of election conspiracy theories. He has also questioned the reliability of voting machines. 

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Curtis came into the job during a tumultuous political time in the county, as far-right activists falsely alleged then-former-President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election because of voter fraud. And in May 2024, a Shasta County Superior Court Judge dismissed a voter fraud lawsuit from a candidate for county supervisor who lost her bid. 

In just his first month on the job, Curtis fired Francescut, who was the former assistant county registrar of voters, providing little explanation. However, just before she was fired, Francescut announced her candidacy for the June 2026 election for the registrar. Last month, Francescut filed a lawsuit against the county alleging that she was wrongfully terminated. 

An investigation from the San Francisco Chronicle also found that Curtis threatened some of his staffers with physical violence, such as threatening to drag one woman out by her hair. (The Chronicle and SFGATE are both owned by Hearst but have separate newsrooms.) Personnel records obtained by the Chronicle also revealed that Curtis gave tasks to staffers that the staffers believed were illegal and he campaigned for himself while on the job, the news outlet reported.