Francescut holds campaign kickoff. She hopes to win Shasta’s top election role in 2026.
Almost 200 people showed up to a campaign event hosted by former Assistant Registrar of Voters (ROV) Francescut. A majority of the vocal public wanted her to be appointed to the ROV role earlier this year. The county board chose Clint Curtis instead. The two will face off for office in 2026.
Joanna Francescut worked for the Shasta Election Office for 17 years, reaching the second-highest ranking role in the department before she was abruptly terminated this spring by her newly appointed boss, Registrar of Voters Clint Curtis.
Curtis fired Francescut on May 27, only days after beginning a role he was voted into by three county supervisors — a position Francescut was also a finalist for. Curtis selection was strongly opposed by two other board members. The former Assistant ROV said Curtis made the decision to fire her despite never having met with her. Curtis hasn’t commented saying the termination was a personnel matter.
Francescut announced her 2026 candidacy for the ROV seat by email only hours after supervisors passed over her to choose Curtis. Curtis announced his candidacy at a town hall event just four days after beginning his new job. Since letting her go, Curtis has repeatedly taken aim at Francescut in official comments he’s made as Shasta’s ROV.
Unlike Curtis, Francescut has already run an election. In March 2024, she ran the Shasta County primary election on her own after her boss, long-term ROV Cathy Darling Allen, went out on medical leave. In her former role as Assistant Registrar of Voters, she’s also played a pivotal role in running a number of other elections both before and since.
Speaking to a crowd of about 175 at the Lake Redding Park on Thursday, Sept. 25, Francescut emphasized her focus on restoring trust in the election process.
“I have put in the work to build the expertise and relationships to safeguard Shasta County’s elections the right way — by the law, and with full transparency to the public,” Francescut said, according to a press release sent out Monday. “I will restore stability, I will protect voter rights, and I will ensure that Shasta County’s local elections office is run with the professionalism and integrity that our community deserves.”
Her words appeared to be a veiled reference to changes that are being implemented at the Shasta Election office under new ROV Curtis. His approach to elections — including plans to livestream ballot counting and implement a bipartisan “canvassing board” — worries many in Shasta.
But there are community members who believe in Curtis’ vision, some of whom have spoken out publicly over recent years claiming there has been a lack of observer access, transparency, and accountability in Shasta’s recent elections. For his part, Curtis has claimed that conditions before he took over the Election Officer were “controlled chaos,” saying there was “no chain of custody” for ballots and referring to conditions at the Shasta Election Office as being “worse than the third world.”
In-person observers from the California Secretary of State’s Office reported no such concerns over recent years. And a lawsuit filed by a Curtis supporter against the Election Office after the March 2024 election was thrown out by a Shasta judge due to a “profound” lack of evidence. Former ROV Tom Toller, Francescut’s boss, has also refuted Curtis’ claims.
Since leaving her role at the Election Office in late May, Francescut has remained largely out of the public eye. That changed last Thursday when she took to the stage of the Lake Redding pavilion to remind the crowd that elections belong to the voters.
“Fair, accurate, and secure elections are the foundation of our democracy,” she said. “To protect that foundation, we must stand together… let’s show Shasta County, and the country, what it looks like when a community chooses trust, truth, and democracy.”
9.30.25 12:16 pm: The story has been updated to correct the date of Francescut’s event.
Do you have information or a correction to share? Email us: editor@shastascout.org.
Through December 31, NewsMatch is matching donations dollar-for-dollar up to $18,000, giving us the chance to double that amount for local journalism in Shasta County. Don't wait — the time to give is now!
Support Scout, and multiply your gift
Author
Comments (20)
Comments are closed.
Related Articles
A group of community members are hoping to start a new medical school in Shasta. Here’s what we know
Redding Vice Mayor Dr. Paul Dhanuka and Simpson University President Dr. Norm Hall are some of the leading figures behind the plan.
With more rain ahead, Redding officials explain flooding, urge caution
This weekend, the city’s stormwater infrastructure became clogged with debris due to the speed and volume of rain, officials said, leading to serious flooding in parts of Redding.
The Redding Public Market opened about a month ago. Here’s how it’s going
The CEO of the development company that owns the market said the venue, which is serving around 2,000 people a day, is revitalizing downtown.
As a true fiscal conservative, I support Joanna as ROV.
Francie. Who Thinks She’s So Fancy. Doesn’t Stand A Chancey…. Don’t Bother. It’ll Just End In You Balling…..😭😭😭
Shasta Scout so subtly lays down the bias and leftist narratives on this one:
• Focus on equity and inclusion: Francescut’s platform is described as prioritizing “equity,” “access,” and “community voice”—terms frequently associated with progressive policy framing.
• Critique of current leadership: The article subtly contrasts Francescut’s approach with the existing Board of Supervisors, suggesting a need for change without explicitly criticizing individuals. This can imply dissatisfaction with conservative incumbents.
• Absence of opposing views: No perspectives from political opponents or critics are included, which limits ideological balance and reinforces a sympathetic narrative.
You are using Echo Chamber Journalism and Circular Reporting to point to other articles in which they ensure they get their points across with and built and their weak foundations with.
The .5% / 525 of registered voters of people they surveyed were self-selecting. Meaning, zealous leftists who read Shasta Scout were by and large most of the participants who completed the survey. It was not conducted door to door, through random selection,
Nevermind how easy it would be to rig survey results you provide through this Shasta Scout controlled site. You supposedly get 525 survey results but get 3 comments, less than 1 percent of people taking the time to make a comment on your articles themselves. I dare you to let me audit your IT systems and the survey to see how legit your surveys really are.
It’s quite the sadist Intellectually Dishonest and Deceiving performance of mental gymnastics. Any public funding you receive should be cut. You are a weaponized propaganda instrument of the sadist psychopath Demoncrat Party.
Wow Jason. That’s quite an analysis and a really remarkable concluding accusation.
This is one of the most Redding-Shastanistan Co comments ever.
It’s like BDE minus the BD and E, so just low energy from someone in a miserable place making things up on the internet to make themselves feel good.
Did you attend this event in person? I’m wondering where the 175 attendance number comes from.
Did you have a chance to cover Clint Curtis’ kick-off event last month? I don’t know the number of attendees, but it looks like all of the tables at the Win River auditorium were filled.
Hi Edgar: I didn’t attend either event. Francescut’s office sent out a press release, Curtis did not. We might have attended Francescut’s because it was a free event in a public location. Curtis’ event required tickets and we do not, for ethical reasons, donate to campaigns. However I did attend a free town hall event by Curtis in May in which he announced his campaign. I published a story about it.
Running on TRUST and TRANSPARENCY despite concealing the fact your office sometimes duplicated and double-counted the wrong ballots when dealing with the ink overspray in November 2024, resulting in at least 4 contests being within the election’s unusually large margin of error… https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid0MKaf9YNhm6bCbFiTAMWo5f2XiVfGm2xLS3gSi9GTxGmcntuaYXtuCCqfDiXWjeBpl&id=100092837937307
I do not think those words mean what you think they do.
Take it court then.
Oh, that’s right…there’s actually nothing behind your claim, and you would be laughed out of court. So you decide to try and use the court of public opinion instead.
There is no law against botching an election through accident or incompetence.
There is a law making it a felony to file false documents with a public office (like a fraudulent post election audit report), but citizens cannot prosecute – only the DA or AG. This is extremely unlikely unless the media actually covers her deceit.
From your comments at other news sources, I’ve seen that you have desperately tried to have the media pick it up, and they just ain’t interested bud.
Why do you think that is?
…maybe it’s a conspiracy, and you need to bring it down Harry!
…or maybe there is nothing there to begin with.
Many reasons.
1) Most people – including journalists – aren’t comfortable with accounting and statistics and don’t feel qualified to evaluate the data for themselves.
2) Local journalists don’t have the funding to hire an expert to review the data on the record
3) While the numbers make blatantly obvious something went very very wrong, it’s much harder to say exactly what that was without some honesty & transparency from the election’s office (which declined all opportunities to explain on the record). Without someone from the audit coming forward, it’ll be extremely difficult to tell the story succinctly (see #1). But the staff is fiercely loyal to Francescut because she’s protected them from public criticism.
4) None of the main news sources want it to be true. They all like Joanna and have had a good relationship with her in the past so if she tells them either from ignorance or deceit “It’s overblown. There’s no issue, we fixed all the problems we found before we certified the election” they’re inclined to take it at that rather than think critically about all the problems she didn’t find in the 98.3% of votes that weren’t audited.
If it was nothing, why has she publicly remained silent while relying on proxies using fallacious straw men and ad hominem attacks? Why not say “while it’s true there were 505 miss-tallies in the 22,148 vbm tallies we audited, there is no reason to presume that 2.3% error rate also applies to the remaining 1,903,024 vbm tallies we did not audit BECAUSE….”
Was that the election run by Tom Toller? Or Joanna? Which is it Harry?
The post election audit was supervised by Joanna Francescut. The fraudulent audit report was signed by Joanna Francescut.
As to who was running the election, I’ll point you to the following exchange from Francescut’s April 30, 2025 interview (~2:59:30 https://shastacountyca.new.swagit.com/videos/349935 ):
Crye: You have told me that you’ve ran the last 2 elections, you’ve been running that office for over a year. Is that a true statement?
Francescut: (nodding) Under someone else’s name, yes.
And you actually trust a man who has never ran an election before but spreads dangerous and unfounded conspiracy theories, coupled with his hiring the MAGA Trio of Hobbes, Gallardo and Plumb to count and certify votes? If so, you are either delusional or in on it too.
The fix is already in, and our only hope is that the California Secretary of State sends up official observers to watch the entire process from start to finish to ensure no shady stuff is happening.
“And you actually trust a man who has never ran an election before but spreads dangerous and unfounded conspiracy theories, coupled with his hiring the MAGA Trio of Hobbes, Gallardo and Plumb to count and certify votes?”
No, and I’ve never said otherwise.
Her campaign kickoff was actually on Thursday, September 25th.
Julie: Thank you so much. I appreciate the note and have double checked my information and corrected the story with a correction notice at bottom.
Obviously the most qualified for ROV candidate. I hope the conservatives in Shasta County will support like their fellow conservative (but not conspiracy believers) Supervisors Long and Plummter so we can continue to have secure and honest elections we have had in the last 45 years we have had in Shasta County since I first moved here. Make sure you VOTE!!!
Agree 100% David. I am concerned about any election run by a guy who claims he can write software to flip votes.