California asked ROV Clint Curtis for written election procedures. Here’s what Shasta’s official sent back

In mid-October, the Secretary of State’s Office sent a letter to Shasta’s election official saying the duty of the state is to ensure that “elections are efficiently conducted and state election laws are enforced.” The letter also asked for documentation and written plans that detail any changes Registrar of Voters Clint Curtis intended to make to preexisting plans, procedures, manuals, equipment or training.

“In providing the requested documentation,” Secretary of State Shirley Weber wrote, “we strongly urge that you consult the California Elections Code, associated regulations, and most importantly, your county counsel to ensure conformance to state law.”

Shasta Scout obtained Curtis’ response to Weber this week via a public records request. The undated document was received by her office on Oct. 21, about two weeks before Curtis’ ran his first election after being appointed earlier this year by a majority of county supervisors.

His 14-page response to the SOS includes a loosely structured collection of his ideological and procedural perspectives on elections interspersed with a series of unverified claims about the missteps of former election officials. 

Three of Shasta’s former election officials say they unequivocally reject those claims. The SOS office did not respond to a request for comment on the document.

Excerpts from the letter 

Curtis began the letter by thanking Weber for her interest and suggesting that she should have examined the Shasta County election process sooner. 

Dear Secretary Weber,

I am thrilled that you are taking this much scrutiny of the election procedures in Shasta County. I hope you are addressing the same issues in other counties all across California. It probably would have been a good idea to have given Shasta County and many others a hard look previously as it might have helped to provide the citizens of this state with much more confidence in our elections. 

Almost immediately, he moves to a discussion about the hazards he’s faced in his role, including alleged death threats — naming a group called Shasta Exposed as being involved. He says in the letter that he has reported the actions to the FBI and DOJ but did not respond to a request for comment asking what evidence he has of the alleged threats or the involvement of particular groups.

There is still a small group which have carved death threats into the trunk of the car I was driving. They have fabricated false documents pretending like I was violating campaign law and then reported those false documents to the local online news papers. They have scratched the fender on my truck while leaving their business cards “Shasta Exposed” and “Antifa” on the window wipers of my vehicle or even posted flyers on the windows of buildings I am associated with.

Shasta Exposed responded anonymously to a query submitted via their website, denying the allegations. They said the group is firmly anti-violence and that if anyone in the public has threatened or otherwise harassed Curtis, they “should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” They specifically addressed a visual made by the group, and referenced in Curtis’ letter, that an includes an image of a firearm. The group says the image was drawn from the cover of a movie about Curtis and was not a threat.

For the next page and a half, Curtis outlined a wide array of alleged wrongdoings by former election officials. His accusations range from mistreatment of observers to issues with key cards, chain of custody and ballot security. Some of his allegations contradict what reporters have observed first-hand at the election office over recent years.

Previously in Shasta County, the public was treated like invaders. They were corralled behind spiked fences and not allowed to observe much of anything. Even simple things like duplication of ballots (which accounted for almost half of the ballots in the last election) were blocked from public observation. Ballots were carried all over the building without any regard for security and even members of the Board of Supervisors were not allowed to view the processes.

It isn’t until two and a half pages into his letter that Curtis first began to address Weber’s questions about his newly-established election processes and procedures, discussing the observer room he created at the election office, his approach to ballot sorting and organization and his concerns about bar code scanners. 

In actuality, the existing bar code scanners did absolutely nothing that would provide any security to the process. They were a novelty without a purpose. That is something that I will need to fix for the next election. If you know of any vendors that deal in barcode scanners software let me know.

Moving on to the ballot tabulation process, the election official described for Weber in narrative form how he intended to implement livestream processes. As part of this section, he addressed his concern about the process of securely sealing ballots. Like other portions of the letter, this section points toward what he sees as potential impropriety by former election officials. 

I do not know if the previous seals were purposely selected to allow for manipulation, but the testing took less than a half-hour to determine they were defective. Additionally, ballots stored after the election were in cardboard or plastic containers and much of the thin tape that was used around the containers were either missing or broken. I would appreciate any guidance you can provide regarding securing old ballots so that the seals can remain intact. Cardboard does not seem to be a good answer.

At the midpoint of his letter, Curtis shared his first lists, documenting locations of poll places and ballot drop boxes and describing the process he’s designed for ballot retrieval. He discussed California’s logic and accuracy testing process to verify machines are properly set up for ballot counting, describing the test as “next to worthless.”

I have always found the Logic and Accuracy Test to be next to worthless, so I did not spend a great deal of time looking to try and improve the observation process. As a computer programmer that developed the prototype for the electronic voting machines I can assure you that computers know when they are being tested and can run one way during a test and another when activated to do so.

Curtis went on to welcome Weber to visit Shasta County herself so he could give her a tour, saying the processes he’s implemented are easily transferable and would be helpful in other counties. 

I would be honored if you could come up to Shasta County so that I can personally walk you through the office. Shasta County’s example of transparency could easily be used to be lower the temperature in other counties where the public is at odds with the bureaucrats.

Representatives from her office and the state attorney general’s office were in attendance during Shasta’s special election as observers and monitors.

Former election officials respond

Former ROVs Cathy Darling Allen and Tom Toller and former Assistant ROV Joanna Francescut were all asked to respond to Curtis’ letter; in particular his allegations of past misconduct at the office. 

Francescut — who served as Shasta’s assistant ROV for six years before being fired by Curtis shortly after he was appointed — spoke firmly in response. She said the statements by Curtis against herself and other former election officials are “patently false and completely unacceptable” and that the Shasta County community deserves a return to normalcy at the election office. 

“There has never been a credible accusation of election interference in Shasta County,” Francescut, who’s running against Curtis for the ROV role in 2026, emphasized. “Any allegation of elections mismanagement under my watch was politically motivated and judiciously tossed from court.”

Cathy Darling Allen, who led the election office for about 20 years before retiring mid-term in 2024 for health reasons, gave a similar response, saying Curtis’ letter “relies heavily on speculation about events that occurred while Mr. Curtis was residing on the East Coast.” 

She said the letter includes a series of “false diatribes” which strike her as intentional. “I doubt this letter was intended to inform the SoS of policy,” Darling Allen wrote by email, “but rather seems to be crafted to be released to the public, and deflect, destroy and distract from his own poor performance running the current election. The accusations are uniformly unsubstantiated, and no proof is offered.”

Former ROV Tom Toller, who was appointed by a similar board majority last year, ran the office for less than a year before stepping down for health reasons. Before becoming ROV, the former county prosecutor had indicated he had concerns about how the election office was being run. But five months after taking charge he changed his mind, saying he had found no evidence of any misconduct.

Yesterday by text, Toller condemned Curtis’ letter, categorically denying the allegations of any mismanagement or misconduct on his watch. “Each of his allegations relies on unsubstantiated innuendo or unreliable hearsay from disgruntled parties, most of which has been rejected more than once by Shasta County judges,” he wrote.

“I will leave the public to decide with me, or not, if Mr. Curtis’ lack of credibility has been amply demonstrated on several occasions since [he was appointed in] May of this year,” Toller continued. “Many must be just as wearied as I am with the drumbeat of his spurious allegations.”

Read Curtis’ full letter here.

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