Nine Candidates Will Interview to Become Shasta County’s Next County Clerk and Registrar of Voters
Applicants include several Health and Human Services Agency employees, two attorneys, and two applicants with elections administration experience, including Shasta County’s top elections official, Joanna Francescut.
Next Tuesday and Wednesday, June 18 and 19, the Shasta County Board of Supervisors will conduct public interviews for the position of Shasta County County Clerk and Registrar of Voters (ROV).
The new appointee will take the seat vacated by Cathy Darling Allen, who retired last month, and will serve out the rest of her elected term, through January 3, 2027. The county’s website describes the County Clerk role as the “licenser of marriage licenses and filer of fictitious business name statements.” The Registrar of Voters position entails administering elections and overseeing voter registration for approximately 112,000 Shasta County voters.
Thirty-nine individuals have applied for the County Clerk/ROV position. Those applicants were narrowed down to fifteen, the county says, by the unanimous decision of a panel of three, consisting of Supervisor Kevin Crye, Supervisor Tim Garman and County Personnel Director Monica Fugitt. Only nine of those fifteen have agreed to move forward to the public interview stage, the County says.
Applicants who will sit for public interviews on June 18 include:
- Debbie Burkett, who currently works as a Tobacco Compliance Specialist in Shasta County’s Public Health Department. According to her application, her elections experience includes serving as a poll worker and precinct inspector and overseeing voter events.
- Clint Curtis, a New York attorney whose areas of practice include election law. Curtis claims extensive election-related legal and consulting work, but he has not had direct involvement in administering elections. He’s famously made claims about computer software being linked to election fraud and said in his ROV application that he believes that voting machines can be linked to the internet. Speaking to the Shasta County Board of Supervisors in March 2023, Curtis encouraged the board not to use voting machines and claimed the Deputy California Secretary of State had provided the public with “massive misinformation.”
- Joanna Francescut, who currently works as Shasta County’s Assistant County Clerk and Registrar of Voters. She’s worked in the Elections Office for sixteen years, is the county’s current top elections official and oversaw the administration of Shasta County’s March primary election while the former ROV, Darling Allen, was on medical leave.
- John Gaglione, who is the Executive Assistant to the County Clerk in Kane County, Illinois. He’s worked in elections for four years. His resume cites leadership roles in various election-related projects including public information work, staff and volunteer training and policy and procedure manuals.
- Kristin Kelley, who serves as the CEO of the Humboldt County Real Estate Association. She does not mention any election-related experience in her application.
- Ken Michaud, who works as a Construction Safety Coordinator for CalTrans. His only election experience is his work as a poll volunteer during the March 5 election.
- Dan Sloan, who works for Simpson University as an associate professor of business administration. According to his application he’s provided logistics services for the Shasta County Elections Office.
- Thomas Toller, a Redding attorney and former Deputy Shasta County DA. In his application, he stresses the importance of pushing back against state election mandates if they don’t address local concerns. He does not mention any election-related experience in his application, other than his work on Erik Jenson’s failed campaign for District Attorney in 2022.
- Jennifer Waltman, who works as a Senior Staff Services Analyst for Shasta County’s Health and Human Services Agency. Her application indicates she’s volunteered as a poll worker and precinct inspector for two years.
The applicants will face a series of five pre-determined questions during the first day of public interviews. After the first round of interviews is complete, the Board as a whole will vote to select one candidate to proceed forward to the second round of interviews. Each individual supervisor will select an additional candidate to move forward to Day 2, meaning six candidates will be interviewed with a second round of five pre-determined questions.
Shasta County Public Information Officer David Maung encouraged the community to attend the public interviews which will, he said in a press release today, June 14, provide “an opportunity to observe the candidates and gain insight into their qualifications and vision for the role. ” A public comment period will be held on June 19, following the completion of both rounds of interviews.
Background and reference checks will be conducted after an offer is made, the County says.
You can see all candidate applications here.
Do you have a correction to this story? You can submit it here. Do you have information to share? Email us: editor@shastascout.org
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I recommend Crye, Garman, Fugitt pick Clint Curtis, He’s a democrat Lawyer and inventor of the voting machine. Who now says the machines are corrupt and should not be used in our voting system. People you can’t make this stuff up. Shasta County Democrats should be happier than flies on a picnic cake with this choice.
Curtis has too much baggage to be taken seriously. He needs to stay on his conspiracy speech circuit to make money.
https://www.wired.com/2004/12/more-questions-for-florida/
Sorry Happy ‘But Uninformed’ Citizen, but it states that attorneys cannot be Election Officials; that is if the Chair of the BoS will go by their own rules. And as far as Clint C. being a Democrat, living in Florida and the head of his own law firm in Florida & New York and is constantly on the road blathering about voting machines, how could he be a full time County Clerk ? There’s another term for Dems in the Southern States-Dixiecrats, those who claim to be Dems, but are Rs in disguise.
Again, send your emails to the 5 Sups and support Joanna Francescut for a non-partisan election official.
You really do think you’re making sense, don’t you??
Awww…
Of course that comment was at the happy citizen. Who is just unbelievably happy.
I can tell by all of the comments.
More wasting of tax payer’s dollars. Let’s NOT import from out of state to run our ALREADY legal and certifiable elections! Joanna Francescut is by far the most qualified and experienced of them ALL!
This office does not hire men workers. Cathy Allen Darling, and this lady now running the office now -Fransecut, are ardent feminist types, apparently. Both go out of their way not to hire men. They also do not hire people of color, or older workers either. They generally only hire young white women. If this continues you can predict lawsuits will happen. I researched the elections office, they do not have any men working at elections 1 specialists, election 2 specialist, or election 3 specialists! This office does not recruit or promote men workers, people of color, senior workers, or disabled workers either. Cathy Allen Darling was the reason for this. If the board picks this interim women to run the office you will likely see the same discriminatory hiring practices. It is especially galling to me that the elections office won’t hire seniors, or African Americans. Seniors and African Americans are your best voters, these subgroups groups take voting seriously. The board needs to put an end to these illegal hiring practices, this discrimination toward people of color job applicants, men job applicants too. They can do that by not rubber stamping Fransecut. They should pick an outsider who will stop the illegal hiring practices, preferably a person with a law background.
Rich.Hmmmm. The Elections Office recently came under fire for having too many older people. Guess they can’t win ’em all.
Rich J. Obviously you haven’t taken a poll of gender and ethnicity at the Election Dept. I count Asians, Native Americans and many Senior citizens. Please, if you’re going to be a misogynist and near-racist do your homework. Apparently you aren’t aware that recruiting is currently illegal.
Oh buddy…this was tough to read. I am close with folks in that department and there used to be quite a few men, but sadly they either a) laid off due to budget cuts due to funding silly things like hand counting, b) were unable to handle the immense stress of dealing with a chaotic public, or c) realized they could support their families by taking a higher paying job in the private sector.
Not to discount your opinion, I’m sure there is merit hidden somewhere in the misspellings and inaccurate names (Cathy Darling Allen, and Francescut for future reference), but it really just comes off as misleading, incel ranting. Breathe! You’re gonna pop a blood vessel!
Lollolol!!! Grasping at straw, eh?
Oh come on if you’re going to make something up you can do better than this.
Absolutely not true. Not in the slightest.
At least tell a falsehood that is slightly believable…
My comment was at Rich Johnson by the way.
Wow. Another one of the MAGA who hate women in positions of authority. HOW DARE WOMEN HAVE A CAREER AND NOT REMAIN PREGNANT, BAREFOOT AND IN THE KITCHEN LIKE GOD WANTS THEM TO BE!
Look at all the attacks Crye, Jones and Co. have hit, notice the clear majority all seem to be women? Ask why they hate women so much.
If you haven’t sent in a Letter of Support of Joanna Francescut to the 5 Supervisors…please do it now ! Go the county supervisor site and see their emails.
If a near riot does not take place if Ms. Francescut is not selected, then I’ll be shocked.
Our definition of Democracy here in Shasta County is at stake. Ms. Francescut is the epitome of a non-partisan office holder. Her perfect composure while being asked questions by Laura Hobbs’ attorney is a testament to her qualifications.
Send those emails to the BoS now !
Ms. Francescut was in contact with Facebook officials in the days leading up to the November 6, 2020 presidential election. According to a Judicial Watch freedom of information request, a Cristina Flores, “U.S. Politics & Government Outreach” employee from Facebook received information from Shasta County election monitoring officials relating to the 2020 presidential election. These election officials sought guidance from Facebook on how to respond to allegations of voter fraud. (info from: and
referenced “SoS-Big-Tech-Election-Misinformation – FOIA” Judicial Watch. https://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/CA-SoS-Big-Tech-Election-Misinformation-PRA-FOIA-2021-1.pdf)
I would like to have candidates in this age of computers to be more tech savvy than the candidates selected. Scanners, tabulators etc… can easily be corrupted by thumb drives with embedded software, careless use of password security procedures, internet modems installed in hardware, failures in updating election software and certifications on machines prior to elections and of course lack of security which allows individuals gaining access to sensitive areas and lack of chain of custody protocols being followed.
Well, it’ll either be Francescut or Curtis. I fear the Trio of Ineptitude have already made their choice, they just gotta make it look like this huckster is “the best candidate.” Also, background check after an offer is made? Seems like they learned nothing from the Criss Street fiasco? Why would they?
They don’t have a choice on the background check; it’s state law.
Ah, well I stand corrected. Glad to see they adhere to some State laws. Perhaps there is hope?
Oh that’s wonderful!!
But guess what Jay Dagget? You really don’t need to do a background check on some of these people because it’s public record.
If you want to talk about rigged, you can’t make the selection process anymore rigged than this.
Let’s get a whole lot of people, who aren’t locals, who want to have a say in our election process.
But, oh yeah, according to Crye, it’s all about local control…