CA election official locked up ballots and called FBI
The Northern California County that often seems to be at the center of election drama is bracing for another potentially bumpy one.
As CalMatters’ Ryan Sabalow explains, Shasta County residents in June ousted Registrar of Voters Clint Curtis. But the longtime conspiracy theorist and election denier still has the remainder of his term to oversee the November general election.
So will Curtis — who locked away ballots after making claims of election fraud in the most recent election — carry out his duty to tally every vote in the county accurately?
Curtis insists he will.
He built a political brand on claims of finding evidence of election fraud. In 2025, far-right members of the county’s board appointed the Florida attorney to run the office, even though he had never officially worked in elections.
Curtis accused his predecessors of stuffing ballots to sway elections — an odd claim to make for a Republican considering that the rural, ultra-conservative county regularly votes for President Donald Trump and his causes, such as banning mail-in ballots and requiring voter ID.
After the June election, in which Curtis was on the ballot and lost, he courted the attention of the Trump administration by claiming ballots looked and felt funny, and some even “smelled wrong.”
To him, this was evidence of bad actors fixing elections. In August, Curtis said he put a padlock on the door where he stored the ballots, and then threw away the key in an effort to preserve them as evidence. Last week FBI agents arrived to inspect the room, Curtis said. A federal grand jury in Sacramento also ordered him to bring boxes containing the ballots, though it’s unclear if he will.
His successor, a former Shasta County elections official, starts their term in January. Until then — as an election that is likely to be fraught with accusations of election fraud heats up — Curtis plans to ride out the federal and state probes into his claims.
Asked who might be stuffing ballot boxes in Shasta County, Curtis shrugged it off.
- Curtis: “Who knows? Who cares? I don’t try to get into who did or why (they) did, only if they did.”
