{"id":43156,"date":"2025-11-07T22:30:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T22:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/43156\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T22:30:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T22:30:12","slug":"shasta-voters-could-attempt-to-break-away-from-california-election-law-next-june-shasta-scout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/43156\/","title":{"rendered":"Shasta voters could attempt to break away from California election law next June\u00a0 \u2013 Shasta Scout"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"A voting booth in the kitchen of the Whitmore Volunteer Fire Department. Photo by Annelise Pierce.<\/p>\n

Shasta supervisors did their ministerial duty yesterday by voting to place a citizen-led initiative on Shasta voters ballots next June.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The initiative<\/a> calls for election \u201creform.\u201d If approved by voters, it would update Shasta\u2019s charter to amend how local elections are run in ways that contradict state law. Those proposed changes include hand counting and voter ID requirements as well as one-day voting.<\/p>\n

A less comprehensive but similar ballot initiative that also contradicts state law was approved by voters in Huntington Beach last year. The new law was immediately challenged by the state in court and earlier this week an appellate court struck it down.<\/a><\/p>\n

Despite the tenuous legal ground, the fact that petitioners gathered more than the required number of signatures in support of the initiative means supervisors are required to place it on the ballot, their attorney said this week. <\/p>\n

Yesterday, county attorney Joseph Larmour acknowledged the legal threat the ballot initiative poses but emphasized the board\u2019s duty to place the measure on the ballot anyway saying the only way to avoid doing so would be for supervisors to file some sort of legal action with the court.<\/p>\n

Supervisor Allen Long specifically asked Larmour about an additional legal concern, that signatures in support of the measure \u2014 the wording of which calls for Shasta\u2019s charter law to be amended \u2014\u00a0were gathered from voters before Shasta was actually approved as a charter county.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Larmour demurred, saying the issue of whether the ballot initiative itself is legal or illegal doesn\u2019t change the board\u2019s duty to vote to approve placing it on the ballot. In terms signatures having been gathered before the charter was approved, Larmour said the legal issues related to that aren\u2019t simple to answer. He noted the issue could be discussed further in closed session.<\/p>\n

After only brief comments, county board members voted unanimously to place the initiative on the ballot in June, with Supervisor Kevin Crye emphasizing that doing so was required and \u201csimply ceremonial.\u201d Last year during a similarly ceremonial vote on whether to certify Shasta\u2019s vote <\/a>last year, Crye and supervisors Chris Kelstrom and Corkey Harmon added the words \u201cunder duress\u201d to their vote. No similar statement was made this time around. <\/p>\n

The board\u2019s vote to place the measure on the ballot earned supervisors cheers from members of the public, which included a number of individuals wearing red \u201cShasta Election Task Force\u201d shirts. The task force, a private citizen group made up of activists, helped gather signatures for the ballot measure.<\/p>\n

Shasta\u2019s registrar of voters Clint Curtis has hired a number of Shasta Election Task Force members to serve as extra help staffers during Tuesday\u2019s election. On an apparent day off from their new roles at the election office, at least five task force members \u2014 including Laura Hobbs, Antonia Palacio, Bev Gray and Joseph Fairchild \u2014 spoke in support of the ballot initiative topic yesterday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hobbs, whose new role at the election office includes transporting ballots from the drop boxes, used her public comment to push supervisors to set a special election date before the June primary, noting that races involving supervisors Crye and Kelstrom as well as her boss Curtis will be on the June ballot.<\/p>\n

\u201cKevin and Chris,\u201d Hobbs said, calling out supervisors Crye and Kelstrom by their first names as she vaguely alleged misconduct against them by former election officials, \u201cthey cheated against you in the 2022 primary, but they didn\u2019t cheat enough \u2026 my question to you is, are you going to let this happen again?\u201d<\/p>\n

Supervisors ignored Hobbs advice and placed the initiative on the June ballot. Election official Curtis also supported the June timing saying waiting to combine the ballot measure with other issues on the ballot mid-year would both save money and reduce stress on his staff.<\/p>\n

Do you have information or a correction to share? Email us: editor@shastascout.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A voting booth in the kitchen of the Whitmore Volunteer Fire Department. Photo by Annelise Pierce. Shasta supervisors…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43157,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,28883,989,28884,721,2054,275,1710],"class_list":["post-43156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-election-task-force","tag-elections","tag-iniative","tag-law","tag-reform","tag-shasta","tag-voting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43156","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=43156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}