An incumbent who denies an election will likely lose the race in Shasta County

Shasta County voters appear to have ousted a controversial election supervisor who promoted conspiracy theories about voter fraud, even as they approved a ballot measure that would require hand-counting of ballots and voter ID cards, in violation of California election law.

If the results stand, Registrar of Voters Clint Curtis, who has stood up for the initiativewill remain in office until the end of the year. On Wednesday, former Electoral Officer Joanna Franscott led Curtis with about 56% of the vote. She is on track to win the race outright because they were the only candidates in the primary.

His loss will set the stage for a tight election in November. The conspiratorial election chief will remain in office after a bitter defeat – with nothing to lose in a district that is already a national hotspot for election deniers.

Tuesday’s election was also marred by long delays in vote counting, and a local journalist expressed concern about the threat of future violence at election offices after the editor of the nonprofit Shasta Scout newspaper reported seeing a poll worker activate what appeared to be a stun gun.

The county Measure Brequiring hand-counting of ballots, in-person voting and voters showing ID, led by 2,464 votes. Activist group called Electoral Reform Shasta stands behind the initiative.

Curtis, a self-proclaimed “advocate for election integrity,” lived in Florida and had no experience administering elections before the county Board of Supervisors appointed him in 2025 over Franscott, who also sought the job.

Curtis has accused his predecessors of stuffing ballots to sabotage Republicans, a claim they say is ridiculous given the district reliably votes Republican. Donald Trump won two-thirds of the Shasta County vote in 2024.

Curtis fired Francis soon after taking office. She filed a lawsuit recently wrongful termination claim.

Curtis associated with conspiracy theorists

Two county-initiated investigations found troubling examples of Curtis acting inappropriately on the clock.

Investigations found that he routinely abused his employees, casually threatened physical violence and incited his workers to commit illegal acts, The San Francisco Chronicle reported. Investigations found that Curtis also violated election law by campaigning for himself while on county business.

Curtis joined the 2020 election deniers, publicly expressed skepticism about voting machines and greatly reduced the number of ballot boxes in the county.

Curtis too would not tell local journalists whether he will cooperate with Trump’s federal law enforcement agencies thereafter new law in California prohibiting law enforcement officers from seizing ballots.

That’s a concern after Riverside County Sheriff and Republican gubernatorial candidate Chad Bianco took the unprecedented step of confiscating ballots in that county this year.

Curtis had been an adviser to the activist group that made dubious allegations of voting irregularities in Riverside County, and he broke the news at a meeting of the Shasta County Board of Supervisors that Bianco planned to confiscate the ballots. As reported by CalMattersBianco investigators relied entirely on the group’s dubious claims when they asked a judge to approve their seizure.

Curtis’s spokesman, Brent Turner, said that if Franciscut ends up getting more votes than him, voters need not worry about Curtis trying to hang on to power, as Trump did in 2020 after Trump lost that election.

“Clint is a law and order investigator of broken systems,” Turner said. “I think it’s more of a Trump play that you’re implying, and I haven’t seen any signs of that.”

A spokeswoman for Francescut’s campaign did not return an interview request sent through the campaign’s social media account.

The apparent passage of Measure B sets up a state court battle that Shasta County is likely to lose. Courts have found that a similar measure passed by Huntington Beach in 2024, requiring voters to show identification, violated state law.

Turner declined to comment on the legal uncertainty and referred inquiries to the California attorney general’s office. The agency did not immediately respond to questions from CalMatters.

Did an election official fire a stun gun?

The AG’s office also did not immediately respond to questions from CalMatters about whether it was investigating one of Curtis’ staffers for allegedly touching a stun gun while a reporter watched.

Annelise Pierce, editor of the Shasta Scout, said she stood outside the election office and watched the workers hired by Curtis as temporary employees.

As they waited on the street for a car to drop off ballots from a remote precinct, one of the men pulled out a stun gun and fired it, making a loud popping sound, Pierce said. Turner disputes that it was a stun gun.

The worker appeared to only be showing the other men the weapon and not trying to hurt anyone, but it alarmed Pierce. She alerted people inside, including observers from the attorney general’s office who were monitoring the election, she said.

Curtis got out and took the stun gun from the man, she said.

Pierce said Turner downplayed the incident. She said this worries her given the tension surrounding voting in the county and the threat of violence at polling stations.

“I think the most upsetting thing was that no one took it seriously when it looked like a safety issue,” she told CalMatters.

Turner said the device is simply a flashlight that makes a buzzing sound.

“Unfortunately, it makes a noise that’s not appropriate, and that was, you know, addressed, but it wasn’t a Taser,” he said.

Pierce said he believed the device was flashlight-shock devicebut she didn’t get a picture of it.

It is illegal for a member of the public to carry a firearm into polling stations in California, brandish a weapon or intimidate election officials or voters, but the law does not appear to specifically address the possession of non-lethal weapons such as stun guns.

Chairman of the California Assembly Elections Committee Gail Pellerin said the incident could lead to a new law that would specifically ban such weapons in election offices.

“I’m sure that’s something we’re going to be looking to fix in another election cycle, you know, because we just keep passing laws dealing with creative new unacceptable behaviors (during elections),” said Pellerin, a Democrat and former Santa Cruz County elections supervisor.

Vote counting in Shasta County is delayed

When Curtis took the job, he promised more efficient vote counting, but election night results were much slower than in most other California counties.

By midnight, several other counties, including neighboring Siskiyou and Lassen, had posted nearly all of their advance counts online, while Shasta County’s website showed less than 2 percent reported.

Turner said the delay was due to a power outage at Shasta County’s dilapidated election building, delaying the process by about two hours, which also happened last year.

“We should really want accuracy and precision in processing the ballot.”

Shasta County Elections Speaker Brent Turner

While discussing the delays, Turner, a Democrat who advocates for open-source voting systems, sounded a lot like other California election officials who are urging patience with the state’s notoriously slow elections.

The time it takes to process mail-in ballots causes results to swing, sometimes dramatically, from early results that typically favor Republicans, a phenomenon that has given rise to many of the conspiracy theories that activists use to cast doubt on election results.

“The procedures we apply and have implementedresults in good precision (with a vote count), but there can be timing elements involved,” Turner said. “I appreciate that everyone wants the fastest possible count, but … we really have to want accuracy and precision in processing the ballot over wanting to have a quick response on election night.”