Shasta election official Clint Curtis uses board presentation to praise his own leadership, critique predecessors
The county board voted unanimously not to act on requests included in Curtis’ presentation.
Shasta County Clerk and Registrar of Voters (ROV) Clint Curtis spoke to county supervisors again this week, asking the board to pass a resolution allowing him to buy small American flags and attend a variety of events to distribute them. He also asked for changes to fee structures associated with providing copies of the county’s voter files to community members.
After hearing his presentation, the board took no action, mostly because the bulk of what Curtis was requesting didn’t require the board’s approval.
Chair Chris Kelstrom took the lead in the conversation. He advised Curtis that he already has the ability to attend events and use his budget as he sees fit, within county policy, and questioned why the ROV needed a new resolution approved.
Lead county attorney Joseph Larmour added his thoughts, emphasizing that he could not support Curtis’ resolution on legal grounds, in part because the board doesn’t have any control over what events an election official does or doesn’t attend.
The presentation included praise for Curtis’ own leadership and critiques of his predecessors. Among other inflammatory statements, he claimed in both his written staff report and the associated oral presentation that he had been the subject of a “ban on Christmas” because he was not allowed to enter the Redding Christmas parade in his official capacity.
“Previous administrations attended The Pride Festival and other left leaning events but never conducted outreach at either the 4th of July nor Christmas,” Curtis wrote in the presentation, adding his own partisan perspective on events that happened before his time. “They were not that successful at the Pride Festival as the people attending were more interested in carrying Palestinian flags instead of American flags.”
Larmour denied Curtis’ “ban on Christmas” claim, explaining to supervisors that his request to attend the holiday event was denied due to costs and the liability associated with using a vehicle in the parade. A review of social media shows Curtis attended the Christmas parade anyway, driving a vehicle advertising his campaign and filled with some of his most ardent supporters and new staffers, including Election Commissioner Patty Plumb, who dressed as the biblical virgin Mary.
Supervisor Allen Long expressed his concern about the line between Curtis’ attendance at local events being used to promote general engagement in elections, versus the possibility that he might opportunistically use these events as a means to promote his own campaign for ROV. Curtis, who was appointed to the ROV role last year, is running to keep the seat in June 2026.
His opponent is Joanna Francescut, the county’s former assistant ROV who was fired by Curtis immediately after he was appointed to the position. Prior to her termination, Francescut had worked for the county’s election office for 17 years.
Since being appointed to the role, Curtis has used his official capacity to smear former election officials — which would include Francescut — at nearly every turn, including in his official communication about election procedures sent to California’s Secretary of State.
His staff report this week was no exception, criticizing past administrations in an attempt to cast himself in a positive light. “This office is attempting to cleanse the reputation of an office that sees the public as a nuisance or vultures,” Curtis opined, “and instead embraces them and encourages observation and participation.
“We have gone to great lengths to correct for the way the public was treated under the previous administrations,” he continued. “In previous elections, even members of the Board of Supervisors were treated with disrespect. It takes more than one cycle to remove the hate that existed of the public.”
In an email after the meeting, Supervisor Matt Plummer characterized Curtis’ statements as “using the staff report to blast his candidate in the upcoming election.”
Reducing fees
Supervisors also took issue with Curtis’ request to decrease the fee for providing digital voter file access to community members. Curtis wanted to drop those fees from $68 down to $5, saying doing so would increase trust in the election office.
While the county would lose money by reducing the charges for the voter files, Curtis said, that money would be more than regained due to a hypothetical increase in trust which, he believes, would lead to a savings of $5,000 per election for security. He said an additional plan to attend community events like Pride with volunteers instead of paid election employees would save the county another $1,200 per event, racking up the allegedly possible county savings to $20,000 annually.
It was math that supervisors couldn’t get behind. Kelstrom questioned Curtis on the specifics of how he had come up with a cost of $5 for the digital voter files, asking how much staff time was actually required to provide the public with that information, to which Curtis claimed he had staff “just sitting around” anyway who could get it done in their free time.
Long asked why Curtis is employing staff who have nothing to do, saying maybe he should consider eliminating positions to save the county money. “Seriously,” he responded, when Curtis’ chuckled.
The board took no action on Curtis’ request, with Kelstrom saying he’d want to see a time audit of the process from the county auditor’s office before further considering whether to adjust the fee structure.
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Joanna did not reconcile the number of people who voted with the number of ballots counted.
Hi Shasta Scout,
All of these comments from Michael amount to spam. All of this could have been combined into one comment.
Not only that, but there is a lot of misrepresentation here so it pretty much amounts to slander, in my opinion. Michael is cherry picking “facts” and presenting them out of context. There is a reason why he’s not citing any sources.
Joanna chose secrecy over transparency. She violated numerous public records request laws.
How much did you get paid for all of your slanderous spam?
Joanna violated multiple election laws, including Ca EC 13113b, for failing to follow the proper random draw for placing names on the ballot. She actually allowed two separate ballots to be created.
Harry, this was already tried in court and dismissed due to woeful lack of evidence.
Also it’s funny, in this instance you are asking her to follow state law, but in your other comment you say it’s okay for the board of supervisors to request someone to break state law.
Sometimes you’re in favor of following the law, and other times you are in favor of breaking the law.
Joanna testified in court that hand counting is used to verify the machine count; however, she also stated that if the hand count is off, she will use the machine because she claims it is more accurate. This is a contradiction.
Joanna chose to destroy election documents over the requests from the Board of Supervisors not to.
And in doing so she was following state law. The supervisors request would have been breaking the law.
Joanna deleted some election data that was supposed to be retained for 22 months.
Joanna decided to conduct a full hand count in a race decided by 50 votes but refused to order a full recount in a race decided by 14 votes. That demonstrated favoritism. Clint Curtis is impartial.
This is so out of context and wrong that it’s hilarious. You sir are a gem!
Just an absolute gem.
Also regarding Clint Curtis, you do know that he has hosted and attended multiple partisan events? It’s been on Facebook, the news and publications.
He’s impartial my fanny.
Joanna did not maintain a chain of custody for the ballots she received at the ROV Office. Clint Curtis does.
Not true. I was an observer and I can say that this is not a fact.
Good thing Curtis will be gone after the next election. Then he and his group of election deniers will start up again with their assault on the ROV office. The bars on the windows will need to be reinstalled.
Oh and BTW, welcome back as a Shasta County employee Benjamin.
If you can’t stand on your own merits without agrandizing yourself and criticizing others, you’ve proven yourself to be nothing more than a big bag of wind.
Oh, and by the way, Joanna Francescut was a board member of The Center for Tech and Civic Life (Mark Zuckerberg)
Actually…no, she wasn’t.
C’mon Nick. You’re either being dishonest or ignorant.
Joanna Francescut served on the advisory committee of the CTCL for a number of years and was on that committee when the CTCL grant offer was made to Shasta County.
https://web.archive.org/web/20220613225841/https://www.techandciviclife.org/advisory-committee/
Notably, she chose not to include that experience in her resumes for the 2024 and 2025 ROV appointments, perhaps because of the controversy associated with the organization.
Toby, do you have a point? We know Curtis and Hobbs are openly working to smear past ROV’s. Curtis, right here in Shasta Scout, see: https://shastascout.org/in-conversation-with-shasta-election-official-clint-curtis/, that he’s working with the DOJ in hopes of indicting and prosecuting both Francescut (the person he’s running against in June) and past ROV Toller.
There have been no DOJ indictments, no Secretary of State, or Grand Jury Actions on this unsubstantiated nonsense. The Hobbs’ silliness has been thrown out of court, costing Taxpayers way over a hundred thousand dollars, and now Hobbs is back with what could be more frivolous non-issues, trying for a hit in the 3rd Court of Appeals at the cost of thousands more.
Your link, on the other hand, means what? I did not see any illegal activity there, did you?
Toby, when will voters wake up to the fact that taxpayers are having to defend against this extreme political nonsense at great cost, when there are families and children here in this county who need food, shelter, Peace Officers who need a raise, and infrastructure that needs to be fixed?
1. Being on an advisory committee is different than being a governing board member who makes decisions.
2. You do know that the information on how this money was spent is public information, don’t you? Not a single cent of this was spent on politics or initiatives. It was spent on equipment. But don’t take my word for it, again it’s public information.
3. Is that really the best you got?
Oh noes, Toby! It isn’t on her resumes?!?
Shocking. Just shocking.
But you do know that Clint Curtis and Brent Turner won’t even produce their resumes for the public?
So far we have a candidate who is transparent about her experience, and two others who are sadly lacking in any type of transparency. About anything.
Go figure.
Yes but Clint Curtis and Brent Turner ran the only transparent election Shasta County has had in years.
My resume is available and a documentary about my election integrity background in on Amazon – see The Real Activist
Unbelievable the ignorance that still thrives in Shasta County
To Nick and Brent’s comments below:
Hahaha! Hilarious!
Hey Nick, I was an observer when Joanna was running the show, and also an observer when Clint was running the show.
Joanna was more transparent and honest. Clint didn’t even know that some processes were supposed to be observable, and he wouldn’t let people see those.
Brent Turner has refused to produce his resume. I have a public records act request refusing to provide his resume/information.
Nick is good at being both. Aren’t ya Nick?
What? He didn’t mention the “Miracle on Market St”? I guess that term is already passe.
That’s Brent Turner’s term … not sure where he is these days. He’s quiet.
Annaliese- I am not quiet. I have been calling you and leaving massages.
I find it revealing that when we should be celebrating the Miracle on Market Street and the transition of Shasta County from “ worst to first “ for county elections the naysayers are instead still trying to throw marbles . The media should now capitulate and stipulate the good election upgrades
Brent: I wrote this a few days before you called me for the first time this year! 🙂
Let’s do another interview soon. I’d like to do one everyday with TSS- especially if we can address the open source software issue that should remain paramount within the election reform community
So Brent Turner wants to do an interview with Shasta scout everyday?
I’m not opposed to interviews, but this sounds more like he wants to use Shasta scout to campaign.
I say we bring it back one more time !! The Miracle on Market Street rocked the naysayers by demonstrating how a social experiment conducted by election security experts can be accomplished, even in an extremely hostile environment. Shasta County residents have embraced the idea of a pair of do gooder trouble shooters from different political perspectives could unite to remedy the previously existing dire circumstances.
So dramatic. Dire circumstances?? Lmao, oh please.
Everything was fine until we got two unexperienced people who thought they knew what they were doing to run the show.
Do you remember we were supposed to report the count to the state in a record time? Well, we actually ended up being the last county in the entire state to report our numbers.
Yeah, such an improvement from those “dire circumstances”.
Yes. What we inherited at the elections dept was abysmal. No cross training- ransacked drawers- zero institutional knowledge. Now it’s positioned to lead the state
Case closed
Oh yes, because it’s all the staff’s fault. That’s what you’re saying.
It couldn’t possibly be due to two inexperienced people who didn’t know what they were doing.
Also, Shasta county was the very last county to report the election results to the state…You really trying to claim that you’re in a position to lead the state??
Hahahahahahaha
The funny part of all this is that you actually think you are being convincing and persuading people, don’t you?
Baloney. What you inherited was a stripped down Yugo (Hart) that replaced a fully loaded Rolls Royce (Dominion). That’s why Clint keeps begging for more money to buy more equipment because he knows how the board got rid of a superior voting system and replaced it with an inferior one to exact maximal stress on the ROV. The election you two oversaw was a cinch, yet you struggled to meet deadlines and made many voters wait at polling places to be verified since your boss eliminated electronic poll pads. All the staff with experience, quit, retired or went out on sick leave. And how many ballots were in the precinct selected for the hand count audit? And no to open source code. Clint may want to follow in the footsteps of Tina Peters but just remember Trump can’t pardon her or him if he is convicted of breaking the law.
Perhaps you can explain why my wife was not notified her ballot had been received and counted? I dropped off both of our ballots together on Election Day at our polling place. The poll worker pulled back the perforations on the envelopes to confirm they were signed by both of us then instructed me to deposit them in the ballot box. I was notified two days later my ballot was received and counted. She never got that notification even though both of us use ballot tracking. Perhaps it got lost in the shuffle, like the ping pong balls?
A little appalled but not surprised. In a blatant electioneering stunt that smeared LGBTQ citizens, past ROVs (whom he’s hoping will be indicted), ROV Clint Curtis complained that he was told he couldn’t support Christianity by going to the Christmas Parade to campaign using taxpayers’ money. And once again, Curtis appeared before the taxpayers to ask for more money. BUT WAIT, this is the same guy who claimed Shasta County would make money off the Nov. 25 election! Where’s the cash, Curtis?
Even though the County Council told Curtis the request was illegal, Curtis showed he’s not too concerned about the law and has no shame. Although Supervisor Crye’s proxy, Chair Kelstorm, gave Curtis lots of “Love” for “all the great things you’re doing down there,” Curtis was still denied.
But we need to ask, how did this happen? Unqualified Curtis, who was initially rejected, was then appointed by Supervisors Crye, Kelstrom, and Harmon over highly qualified candidates… because these supervisors support and endorse the same far-right, extreme conspiracy theories about election fraud that Curtis uses his office to promote, spreading Trumpian lies and misinformation for their political base. And as long as those supervisors aren’t linked to Curtis’s illegal activities, such as openly attempting to break the law and denying Shasta Scout and other media outlets First Amendment access, Curtis will continue to have their support.
Curtis is a nice guy, but when it comes to law, ethics, and knowledge, I’m not sure his elevator reaches the top. And as long as Curtis and personnel like Laura Hobbs and the Shasta Five control our elections, Shasta County taxpayers face serious legal and economic risks.
Just another grifter.
I wonder why Clint Curtis finds the previous ROV distrustful?
Prior to the 2022 elections The Center for Tech and Civic Life (Mark Zuckerberg) offered $400 million to different entities to sway elections in a liberal direction. Shasta County was offered $1.5 million that was not accepted by the Shasta County Supervisors instead a counter offer was made. By a 3/2 vote the BOS made a counter offer they would accept $1.5 million only to build/purchase new office space for the ROV.
Rather than follow directions from the BOS Kathy Darling Allen and Joeanne Francescut , proven by over 100 emails, conspired to accept the original offer, which they did.
Three times they were told “NO” when asked by Chair of the Board Patrick Jones if the counteroffer had been accepted by The Center for Tech and Civic Life when in reality the offer had been accepted. This fact only came out when CEO Dave Rickert brought to the BOS attention this money had to be used soon or the county would lose it.
The money was put into the general fund and then used to buy the HART tabulation machines.
For anyone who wants a more objective version of the story: https://shastascout.org/the-shasta-county-board-is-still-discussing-a-nearly-three-year-old-elections-grant/
In all fairness, Shasta Scout is not objective in its coverage. You receive tens of thousands of dollars each year from left-leaning nonprofits, one of which is connected to George Soros (Institute for Nonprofit News via donations from the Open Society Foundation).
Your objectivity regarding the CTCL grant is also suspect. The CTCL money was funneled through the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, which also gave Shasta Scout money and is a left-leaning organization (donates money to Planned Parenthood).
There’s nothing wrong with being left-leaning and writing for that particular audience. But why pretend? Just be straightforward and honest.
Toby: Still waiting to hear what about our coverage isn’t objective? I hear that you think our funding sources could make our coverage lean left. But I don’t hear any facts backing a claim that our coverage isn’t factual.
The definition of objective is reporting facts without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations. Given your personal politics (voted for Obama, Hillary Clinton), funding sources (left-leaning nonprofits), and readership (which skews left), I don’t believe you can report the facts without some level of distortion or other prejudices creeping in. But I also don’t believe anyone can.
My point of contention is that you present Shasta Scout as a neutral bipartisan enterprise, when that is not the case. And I don’t see the point in pretending.
Toby: You don’t believe we can report the facts. And yet still, no evidence of us not doing so. What makes a news source nonpartisan and objective is not the pure neutrality of any of its staffers, funding sources, or readers – something which no one can claim. It’s that we report the facts themselves and present them in a way that allows the reader to make up their own mind. I’d refer you to any of our coverage of candidates and measures, including most recently Prop. 50.
I must comment I have found TSS to be fairly reasonable in their reporting. Certainly the Scout leans left but that’s part of the lens. Even when I dropped the ping ping balls TSS showed decorum. Ha ha
LOL! Your response is extremely dishonest. Either that…or you are an absolute moron. YES of course you lean left. HARD LEFT! You might as well own it. Admit the truth and show a degree of credibility for once.
WTF! LOL! Are you seriously saying that you accept money from George Soros but you do not lean left?
Michael: We have never been offered or accepted money from Soros.
Annelise’s statement that she has not received money directly from George Soros is correct, but misleading. Shasta Scout has received money from the Institute for Nonprofit News, which has received millions of dollars from the George Soros Open Society Foundation.
You can look that up on their website: https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/grants/past?filter_keyword=institute+for+nonprofit+news
Toby: We haven’t even existed during the extended timeline over which INN received “millions” – actually just over $2 million. The connection you’re making between us and Soros is so weak as to be silly. Among many other funders, we have received some funding from INN over several years during which they have apparently received some funding from the Open Society Foundation. You are the one who is being misleading.
Also, for someone interested in transparency, its strange that you’re using both an alias email and multiple VPNs to hide your identity.
Where journalists get their money and where it ultimately comes from is important to know. I don’t believe you have a direct line to George Soros or that he is telling you what to publish, but let’s be real. People give money to organizations that they believe will advance their shared goals. For whatever reason, the goals of the Institute for Nonprofit News and George Soros are aligned. And the goals of INN are aligned with Shasta Scout and vice versa, or else why would you be a member of their organization, and why would they give you grants? That’s just the real world.
Toby: I can agree with you that there’s always some level of alignment with any kind of transaction. For example, I buy gas where its cheap but still a reliable brand. I disagree with the idea that we or other news organizations are aligned in any significant way with all of our funders’ and/or their funding sources. That’s quite a leap. Here’s just one example of something INN facilitated funding for. We pitched this story series in response to an INN announcement. It was a story we wanted to tell anyway and they helped fund the labor behind it. This is how news organizations work to serve rural communities. https://shastascout.org/the-specialist-squeeze-in-rural-areas-like-shasta-county-the-lack-of-specialist-doctors-hurts-patients-families-and-the-community/
Toby, you’ll probably agree, but SS is so much better at impartiality than ANC–case in point, the recent article reprint of positive reflections on LaMalfa. That was more than window dressing. Shasta County culture is overwhelmingly conservative and I appreciate SS attempting a nod to it by resisting the lazy woke themes of MAGA always-Bad, Three Supes always-Bad, Backwater county and all all educated people want to move away.
Conveniently you are leaving out a whole lot of relevant information.
Hey Nick, you do know that the grants had strict terms that the funds were not to be used to influence any election? None of it was allowed to be used to endorse any politician or initiative or the money would be forfeit.
But I guess that just doesn’t fit in your narrative, now does it?
Instead of using that grant money to buy or build a new election office, it was wasted to buy an inferior Hart election system to replace the perfectly functioning Dominion system. The board should have accepted the money immediately, bought land or existing building, instead of playing games. The board has wasted millions and counting trying to satisfy election deniers like Nick to no avail. Trust has not been restored, in fact, is worse now than it was before CDA left.
Really Brad? Spending $266k per year plus add ons is cheaper than buying Hart tabulators that average out to $65k per year is cheaper? Putting up bars that denies open access to the election office sure does instill trust, doesn’t it Brad? Inferior Hart machines? The Hart tabulator count came out the same as the hand count unlike the last election that used Dominion tabulators.
We only bought 4 Hart tabulators to replace 70 Dominion tabulators. When it comes to voting equipment, leasing the hardware is always better than owning because vendor is responsible for maintenance and replacement when equipment breaks down or becomes obsolete. Additionally, biggest cost to running elections is not hardware, it’s software. It must be written for every election such as in 2024 election, where there were nearly 60 unique ballots in Shasta County alone. The Hart tabulators failed to scan ballots with microscopic overspray issue while Dominion tabulators had no such problem despite those counties using Runbeck to print their ballots with the identical flaw. If you have proof of insufficiencies of Dominion tabulators, let’s see it. The bars were necessary to keep you and your hostile election denier buddies out. Only reason we didn’t have a problem in last election is because your boy Clint hired all the agitators to work in the election office.
Brad – since you enjoy such expertise it would be great to have you on the front line of the movement to replace proprietary election systems with next gen open source technologies. Let’s do that
Brent Turner, you do know that it would be easier to hack an open source software that’s available for anyone to look at, then a proprietary one where it’s more difficult to look at the code?
You do get that, right? Don’t you?
Go back to sleep, Nick.
Because of all the fake controversy that you guys have stirred up, I actually went on an observer tour myself.
Those bars were put up to secure the ballots. Period.
Don’t you feel that the ballots should be kept secure?
Do you remember when Arthur Gorman, Jon Knight, and company forced their way in through the back alley into the elections building? Remember when Richard Gallardo tried to force his way into where the ballots were kept? This has all been documented in the news.
I guess you don’t want our ballots to be secure though…
These is where you get nothing but crickets from Nick as we speak truth to his lies. He, like his buddy Crye, are experts at gaslighting the gullible.
How did CTCL use the grant funds to “sway elections in a liberal direction?” There were no strings attached to the grant funds handed out during the 2020 Presidential General Election. Counties could spend the grant funds on anything related to conducting the election during a pandemic to ensure all voters could exercise their right to vote, such as poll worker training, voting location rental fees, cleaning supplies, PPE and other social distancing supplies, and voter education about how to cast a ballot. How was ensuring voters did not encounter insurmountable barriers to casting their ballots during a pandemic favor one political party over another?
Sounds like Curtis is using staff to campaign for office. Isn’t there a law against that?
Your continued coverage of the elections office and the ROV is so much appreciated!
One of the things that seems to be getting lost in these ongoing discussions and debates about Clint Curtis’ role in elections is his genuine lack of understanding with regard to election law. In his staff report and in his oral presentation this week, Curtis argued for the steep reduction in fees for voter data in order to make the data more available to the public at large. While this sounds like a great idea for the sake of transparency, the law is clear that there is a narrow set of circumstances under which this data is available, in part to balance government transparency with a voter’s right to reasonable privacy with regard to one’s own voter information. The law can be found here: https://admin.cdn.sos.ca.gov/regulations/elections/access-to-voter-registration-information.pdf
Further, we have seen locally why this balance is necessary, as in the past, data has been used to literally harass people in the community, such as this incident prior to the mid-term elections in 2022. https://www.kcra.com/article/shasta-county-reports-possible-voter-intimidation/41417798
It would be helpful if the current ROV would focus less on his imaginary “War on Christmas” and more on following the laws and promoting actual transparency and accessibility for our elections.
Because, as it turns out, Curtis DID manage to find a way into the parade as a candidate, without spending county resources, and with the blessed accompaniment of a 65 year-old Virgin Mary. Sounds like a Christmas miracle all the way around.
All your articles a straight to the point. Keep up the good coverage.
“A review of social media shows Curtis attended the Christmas parade anyway, driving a vehicle advertising his campaign and filled with some of his most ardent supporters and new staffers, including Election Commissioner Patty Plumb, who dressed as the biblical virgin Mary.”
SHASTA COUNTY- you have an opportunity in a few months to show that this ROV needs to be sent back to FLORIDA where he slithered out of the right-wing swamp.
Patty Plumb as the Virgin Mary? He he hee!
The 65 year-old Virgin Mary is one of my favorite parts of this ridiculous ongoing saga. We couldn’t make this stuff up if we tried.
This man is an arrogant ass! There is more distrust of our ROV’s office now than ever before! He has surrounded himself with conspiracy theory idiots!
Buying American flags with County funds to use at his campaign events. Smearing his opponent under the color of authority of the current office. Claiming staff is just sitting around because he has not the first clue what it is they actually do. SMH. Vote better, Shasta County.