Shasta elections official in violation of state law for not destroying November 2024 ballots, county attorney says

Shasta County Registrar of Voters Clint Curtis is in violation of state law for not destroying November 2024 ballots, county attorney Joseph Larmour says. 

According to California elections code, voted ballots from federal elections are required to be destroyed or recycled 22 months after the election takes place. A letter sent by Secretary of State Shirley Weber to all county elections officials in April clearly laid out that timeline, stating that the 22-month retention period for the November 2024 election ended on Sept. 5, but Curtis still hasn’t destroyed them.

He told Shasta Scout last Friday that he had intended to send the ballots to a shredding service on Sept. 11 but held off due to litigation filed two days prior, saying he was awaiting instruction from the secretary of state or county counsel. 

During today’s board of supervisors meeting, Larmour explained that last week’s litigation was filed by an individual named Arne List in an attempt to get a temporary restraining order to prevent Curtis from destroying the ballots. List describes himself on social media as a public integrity and election transparency advocate, and he’s shown support on his page for both Curtis and Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco.

The temporary restraining order was denied during a last-minute court hearing this morning, Larmour said, meaning the ballots need to be destroyed as soon as possible.

“Every day past the 22 months that those documents exist is a violation of law,” he said. 

Larmour said the state is aware that Curtis has not destroyed the ballots and that state officials are “heavily involved in what’s going on,” adding that officials with the Secretary of State’s Office are currently in Shasta. He said federal officials are present in the county today, as well, though he did not elaborate further. 

Curtis has not responded to a request for comment today about whether he’s moved forward on the destruction of the November 2024 ballots. A representative with the Secretary of State’s Office declined to comment on the matter, and the California Department of Justice has not yet responded to a request for comment. 

Curtis has claimed that there were irregularities with both the November 2024 election — which was administered by his predecessor — and the June election he ran this year. 

Last week, Curtis received a subpoena to testify before a federal grand jury and bring with him tens of thousands of voted ballots from the June 2026 election. He told Shasta Scout at the time that he hoped the November 2024 ballots would also be investigated by the federal government, saying he was storing them in the same locked room in the Market Street elections office as the June ballots.

“If the 2026 [ballots] show up to be bad,” Curtis said, “then they might have a nexus to look at the 2024 [ballots].” 

Supervisors were originally slated to discuss the litigation attempting to delay ballot destruction in closed session today, but it was discussed publicly instead after a majority of the board voted to do so. 

Larmour said he had learned only yesterday that there would be a hearing on the temporary restraining order this morning, which he said was too late to seek the board’s vote on how he should represent the county in court. In the absence of that direction, he said he followed county policy that allows him to act unilaterally when needed and opposed the temporary restraining order.

Supervisors appeared to approve of that action and voted for Larmour to continue to represent the county in the same way during the next hearing on the litigation, which is scheduled for Sept. 17. Larmour indicated that the hearing is likely to be little more than a formality since the restraining order has already been ruled against. 

He told supervisors that when Curtis asked him whether he should destroy the ballots, he explained to him that a legal filing by a private individual is not among the allowed reasons to retain documents under state rules. 

During ongoing board discussion, Supervisors Matt Plummer and Allen Long expressed concern that any ongoing failure by Curtis to destroy ballots might put the county at legal risk. Larmour said that was a possibility, explaining that while an elected official such as Curtis can face his own criminal and civil legal issues related to a failure to perform his constitutional duties, that reality doesn’t prevent the board from being named in a lawsuit to demand that the ballots be destroyed.

Given that reality, Long and Plummer both supported the idea of placing on the board’s next agenda the possibility of taking legal action against Curtis in the coming weeks in an attempt to force him to comply with the law and destroy the ballots. Doing so, Plummer said, would communicate to the state that “as representatives of the county overall, we’re doing what we can to not be at fault for violating state law.”

But all three other supervisors opposed that vote, opting to take a wait-and-see approach to find out if Curtis will voluntarily comply with the law before considering any legal action. 

“This is between our registrar of voters and the secretary of state and the courts right now,” Board Chair Chris Kelstrom said, “and I don’t think we need to stick our nose in the middle of it.”

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