<\/p>\n
Shasta County Clerk and Registrar of Voters Clint Curtis stands in his new election observer area at the Market Street elections office on Feb. 25 in\u00a0Redding.<\/p>\n
Jason Armond\/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images<\/p>\n
A California election official who threatened to have an employee dragged out by her hair and \u201cthroat-punch\u201d others is making final preparations for Tuesday\u2019s primary election, in which his name appears as a candidate on the ballot.<\/p>\n
The Shasta County Board of Supervisors allowed Registrar of Voters Clint Curtis to stay on the job despite back-to-back personnel investigations finding that he routinely mistreats staff, casually threatens physical violence, has asked them to do things they consider illegal and has campaigned on his own behalf while on the job\u00a0\u2014 in violation of election law\u00a0\u2014 according to hundreds of pages of personnel records obtained by the Chronicle.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. Curtis has demonstrated a clear pattern of unprofessional and abusive conduct toward staff,\u201d Monica Fugitt, Shasta County\u2019s director of support services, wrote in the report, which determined Curtis engaged in \u201cpervasive\u201d abuse based on \u201ca significant volume of witness accounts.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Stopping short of calling for Curtis to be placed on administrative leave, Fugitt recommended that he be publicly censured and kept separate from his employees unless chaperoned. Writing that Curtis \u201ccreated a hostile and abusive working environment,\u201d Fugitt added that \u201cit may be necessary for the county to pursue a workplace restraining order to protect employees from continued harassment.\u201d<\/p>\n
On April 28, supervisors declined to take any disciplinary actions against Curtis, who makes<\/a> more than $150,000 a year and claimed to be the victim of a plot to discredit him by former deputy registrar Joanna Francescut, whom he fired and who is challenging him in Tuesday\u2019s election.<\/p>\n San Francisco Chronicle Logo<\/p>\n Make us a Preferred Source to get more of our news when you search.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThe old staff, there has been constant contact with Francescut,\u201d Curtis said, waving a printout with blue dots to support his claim. \u201cShe even manages to get \u2026 into my internal messaging service.\u201d<\/p>\n The personnel investigations into Curtis, a\u00a0controversial election skeptic<\/a> who had never run an election prior to his May 2025 appointment, mark another chapter in the\u00a0raucous political transformation of Shasta County<\/a>, a traditionally conservative enclave that veered to the far right five years ago, as deep economic and social wounds coincided with militia-supported gripes about elections and the pandemic.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The 67-year-old Curtis has driven most of the local drama in the past year, feuding with reporters, platforming secessionists, stirring election fraud claims in Riverside County and, in one viral video, parading around his office shirtless. On Tuesday, he will be among the first to learn whether his constituents approve of that record or have tired of it.<\/p>\n \u201cAnything could happen,\u201d said assistant registrar Brent Turner, an open-source voting proponent from San Francisco who found common ground with Curtis on election security issues.<\/p>\n Known quantity<\/p>\n It isn\u2019t as if Shasta leaders didn\u2019t know whom they were getting when they hired Curtis to run elections in their rural mountain community 200 miles north of San Francisco.<\/p>\n Curtis, a former Democrat who has denounced electronic voting machines since leveling baseless claims that they cost him a congressional race in 2006, had been gadflying in right-wing media circles when supervisors selected him over assistant registrar Francescut and elections officials from Nevada, Michigan and Virginia.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n A former attorney and programmer, Curtis has been telling virtually the same story for a quarter-century, that he discovered voting machines\u2019 susceptibility to hacking while working for a Florida technology company in the late 1990s.<\/p>\n In Shasta County, he inherited an office riven by election denial conspiracies boosted by populist supervisors on the right and said he would restore faith in the process. He clashed quickly with staff, firing the well-liked Francescut, hiring election skeptics and deniers, and reducing the number of ballot drop boxes in a county whose rural population relies on them. He also advertised an unofficial election by a secessionist group, campaigned in support of the voter ID initiative by Assembly Member Carl DeMaio<\/a>, R-San Diego, and beefed with county leaders<\/a> over a\u00a0potentially illegal<\/a> ballot measure that would greatly restrict the right to vote.<\/p>\n Despite those stances, voter registration in Shasta County has slightly increased since Curtis became registrar, from 115,735 in February 2025<\/a> to 116,345 as of May 20<\/a>, with more than half of voters registered Republican and less than a quarter Democrat.<\/p>\n In March, an external probe by Oppenheimer Investigations Group LLP, prompted by a series of staff complaints, determined that Curtis made campaign-related calls during work hours and verbally harassed staff, including one employee he improperly admonished during a June 2025 open house event and then prevented from attending a conference.<\/p>\n According to Fugitt\u2019s report, she met with Curtis on March 26 to deliver Oppenheimer\u2019s findings, tell him he would undergo additional training and explicitly forbade him from retaliating against the employee from the open house matter.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The very next day, Fugitt found, Curtis asked that employee to pull the mailing addresses for every Shasta County resident who voted in person\u00a0\u2014 a request that employees said would violate the election code and culminated with Curtis knocking loudly on a female staffer\u2019s door and making the remark about having human resources \u201cdrag you out by the hair.\u201d<\/p>\n Curtis admitted to Fugitt that he asked staff to pull in-person voters\u2019 addresses so he could send them a mailer that they would bring the next time they voted. But he chose not to proceed because \u201ceveryone else voiced the concern\u201d that he was excluding mail-in voters, hadn\u2019t designed the mailer and didn\u2019t know who would mail it out or how much it would cost.<\/p>\n Curtis initially didn\u2019t respond when Fugitt asked him whether he threatened the employee, she wrote in her report. She asked again and he denied it.<\/p>\n Based on the nine other witness accounts as well as internal emails and Teams messages, Fugitt concluded it was likelier than not that Curtis made the threat.<\/p>\n In his interview with Fugitt, Curtis portrayed himself as beleaguered, telling the investigator that he was used to employees pretending to misunderstand him. \u201cNo one knows how to do anything when you ask them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Witnesses alternately described Curtis as someone who makes off-putting jokes or unwanted gestures\u00a0\u2014 like repeatedly sticking out his tongue at one employee\u00a0\u2014 and an unstable manager who disguises his temper behind chuckles.<\/p>\n One employee said Curtis was \u201call bark, no bite\u201d and that he routinely makes \u201cgeneric assault remarks,\u201d including one where Curtis reportedly said \u201cyou could kill and get rid of homeless people if they made staff uncomfortable.\u201d Multiple employees said he regularly utters casual threats to kill, punch, slap and spank people who frustrate him.<\/p>\n An employee who claimed a good working relationship with Curtis said he makes disparaging or condescending remarks to staff on a daily basis, and about once a month goes further.<\/p>\n The employee said Curtis reserves most of his displeasure for two employees well-versed in the election code. The employee also said they have pulled Curtis aside to tell him not to berate staff and that the employee \u201chas to speak to him as if he is a child and then he will listen.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen asked how it affects staff, (the witness) expressed that staff are working hard to achieve new processes but are facing badgering and being excluded which affects their ability to accomplish anything,\u201d Fugitt wrote.<\/p>\n Turner, who has a reputation for being the Curtis whisperer around the office, characterized the claims against his boss as overblown and gave credence to Curtis\u2019 belief that he has never been given a chance by employees loyal to Francescut.<\/p>\n Joanna\u00a0Francescut, a candidate for Shasta County clerk and registrar of voters, in Redding on Oct. 24.<\/p>\n Santiago Mejia\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n But Turner, who said he disagrees with Curtis about voter ID and on many other issues, also acknowledged his penchant for stoking controversy, like when Curtis traveled 600 miles to\u00a0advise an inland California group<\/a> whose unproven fraud claims\u00a0became the basis<\/a> of Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco<\/a>\u2019s polarizing investigation<\/a> into the November 2025 election.<\/p>\n \u201cHe comes maybe from an area in the Midwest where that joking style is part of how he grew up,\u201d he said. \u201cAlso, he\u2019s deaf. He can\u2019t understand what\u2019s being said unless he lip reads. I speak unusually loud so he likes me.\u201d<\/p>\n Fugitt\u2019s report included multiple accounts of Curtis saying he would throat-punch someone. The references led to a colorful exchange on April 28, when Shasta County Supervisor Allen Young asked Fugitt about them.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I would say is that the investigation found that he made statements that he would slap or punch other county employees when frustrated,\u201d Fugitt said.<\/p>\n \u201cSlap or punch,\u201d Young said. \u201cAnd was that a throat punch?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCorrect,\u201d Fugitt said.<\/p>\n Curtis roundly denied the allegations and called for transferring his detractors to another department, saying he would refuse any attempt to have him work remotely.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t leave that place with the people that are there and expect that the election be held correctly,\u201d he told supervisors. \u201cThey\u2019re trying to sabotage it.\u201d<\/p>\n Curtis\u2019 supporters on the board cited the proximity of the election in declining to censure him. But they also told their chosen registrar to cool it with the jokes.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not going to vote for a censure because it\u2019s right before an election,\u201d said Supervisor Corkey Harmon. \u201cBut please stop the jokes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cKnock it off with those off-handed comments,\u201d added Supervisor Kevin W. Crye. \u201cThey\u2019re not funny. They\u2019re not funny.\u201d<\/p>\n Supervisor Chris Kellstrom joined Harmon and Crye in rejecting disciplinary action, with Young and Supervisor Matt Plummer dissenting. The decision drew sharp rebuke from numerous residents, including at the May 5 meeting, when a number of residents castigated the board.<\/p>\n Crye, who galvanized local election conspiracists following his 2022 election and voted to hire Curtis, made an analogy comparing the credibility of Curtis\u2019 accusers to that of his wife.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know, my wife (and I have been) married 26 years. I\u2019ll believe most of the stuff she says,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I\u2019m not saying those reports did or didn\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n Crye and Kellstrom are also on Tuesday\u2019s ballot and also face challenges to their reelection, making for an unofficial referendum on Shasta County\u2019s MAGA tilt.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat happens if it gets really gritty and it\u2019s a contested race?\u201d asked Turner, who said he\u2019s requested Election Day monitoring assistance from the attorney general and secretary of state. \u201cThis thing could get pretty wild.\u201d<\/p>\n As for Curtis, he is going into Tuesday\u2019s election at a fundraising disadvantage. Francescut had raised more than $95,000 through May 16, her campaign filings show; Curtis had raised less than $46,000 and spent more than $56,000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shasta County Clerk and Registrar of Voters Clint Curtis stands in his new election observer area at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,204,13],"class_list":["post-340134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-election","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n