Commentary: Stop pretending November 2024 was “observed”
Commentary by Kari Chilson
I stood in that hallway. I spoke at the Board as KC. I signed sworn statements about November 11 and December 3, 2024. This morning—Thursday, September 17, 2026, 8:30 a.m.—at Department 63, sixth floor, Redding Main Courthouse, 1515 Court Street, a judge will hear whether the paper from that election is shredded. The case is List v. Curtis, No. 26CV-0211712. The gallery is public. You do not need a lawyer to walk in.
This is my opinion. It is also a record: the public was not given a real chance to watch the count; many times, ballots were not handled in the open, the chain of custody of ballots was not maintained, and the offices that were told have never investigated the complaints.
What the law required
California does not invite observers as a favor. Elections Code § 15104 says vote-by-mail observers get notice and sufficiently close access—close enough to see envelopes, signatures, and whether staff are following the rules. Chain-of-custody rules exist so a ballot can be followed from the drop box to the sealed bag.
After a federal election, § 17301 says those sealed packages stay unopened for 22 months from election day. For November 5, 2024, the County set destruction for September 11. After 22 months, the Registrar may destroy the packages unless a contest or a criminal case still needs them. May is not “must shred this week while people are still in court.”
My sworn declarations: Two rooms, two days, same problem
The observation wasn't one glitch in one hallway. It was the same pattern in different rooms on multiple days.
Duplication room
Ink overspray sent a huge share of ballot cards to a second process, sometimes more than once, so a machine could read them. Registrar of Voters, Thomas Toller put the reject rate near 50 percent. The County’s method was supposed to be computerized: the system prints a new official ballot. That is why a supervisor writing on a ballot by hand in that room matters. I had to jump to see it, because the work was behind large objects and a staff member's back. A printed duplicate does not need a pen on a card hidden behind equipment you are not meant to see. When half the deck is being remade, you need more eyes, not a door, a corner, and a cabinet.
Tabulator room, December 3.
That was a different room and a different day—the last posted processing day before certification was due. Notice went out at 4:51 p.m. the night before, which was late notice and violated the law. Work had already started when observers were finally let in. I stood at the glass and copied the ballot log as batches ran. On the last batches, what I saw on the screen did not match what was being written down. When a supervisor saw me, they flipped the logs over again and again, so I could not copy the ballot data. After the posted 5 p.m. end, observers were walked out. The results file from that session is time-stamped after 9 p.m. I have called that a falsified count because the log and the screen did not agree, and other log sheets were intentionally hidden from me.
Late notice. Work before the door opened. Glass. Closed Rooms. Monitors. Ballot work around a corner. That is not “close access.”
What the sworn statements actually describe
A declaration is a signed statement under penalty of perjury: the day, the room, and what you saw. The Ladd v. Toller case attached more than fifty of those from people who tried to watch the 2024 count. They keep hitting the same wall.
The counting rooms were upstairs. Observers were told to wait in the lobby. Bev Gray wrote that on November 2 she arrived at 9:03 a.m. and was held downstairs while ballot batches were already running above her. By the time she was allowed up, work she had a legal right to see was already over.
Signature checking—matching the name on a returned envelope to the signature on file—was moved to computer monitors in another room. Elisa Ballard and others wrote that names went by so fast, sometimes in a second or two, that you could not read the voter, write the name down, or stop a bad match. A flat picture of a signature line also hides what you can see on real paper: an indent, a bleed-through, a stamp.
After the ink problem, thousands of ballots had to be remade so a machine could read them. The County’s method was supposed to be computerized: the system prints a new ballot. Laura Hobbs, Michele Tyson, and others wrote that they kept the door to that room shut. You could not hear the staff or see which ballot card was being remade.
Inside, ballots from different steps sat together on unlabeled shelves: raw cards, already-scanned cards, reprints, blanks. You could not follow one batch from start to finish. Staff also told observers there was “nothing to observe” and sent them out. People who stayed anyway—Patty Plumb, Jim Burnett, and I among them on November 11—found work still happening. Boxes were opened, checked, and taped back up as “counted.” Those are not only volunteer accounts. Election commissioners the county itself appointed—Bev Gray, Patty Plumb, Ronnean Lund—signed declarations about observation problems from that election cycle. Supervisor Patrick Jones said in open session that he went to the elections office during the canvass and still could not see the work the code requires.
On October 29, Dan Ladd told the Board he and others were sent away after staff said nothing was happening, then found people opening ballots and writing on them with pens. Jim Burnett described signature verification on three monitors at a speed that made a challenge a joke. On December 10, Laura Hobbs told supervisors the public trust does not survive that kind of canvass.
December 10 was the tell.
Toller had already signed the official results on December 3 and sent them to the Secretary of State. On December 10, he told the Board that certification was already done: “That ship has sailed.” On December 10, the Board’s job was only to declare the certified results for the races under its jurisdiction.
After hours of comment about blocked observation, ink overspray, and a canvass nobody had investigated, the Board voted 5–0 to declare. Jones, Crye, and Kelstrom put “under duress” on the motion. Garman and Rickert voted yes and said they were not under duress. County Counsel said the phrase has no legal effect. Three supervisors would not even declare the results in a normal voice. Then everyone went back to business.
Complaints went to the Board, the Registrar, the District Attorney, and the Secretary of State. The Board mailed the Department of Justice about March machine clocks and November ink. A letter to Washington is not an interview with the people who stood at that window. No office walked through those sworn pages and published answers.
The paper is still the last check.
My Public Records Act requests 26-1766 (September 4) and 26-1779 (September 5) asked for the December 3 logs, batch sheets, observer records, and chain-of-custody files. The County has not sent the determination the law required in ten days. Those files are not the same thing as the sealed ballot bags. Shredding both into one bin would bury an open records request, and the only physical evidence of a canvass three supervisors would only declare under duress.
A temporary restraining order is only an emergency pause. On September 15, County Counsel told the Board the court had denied that pause that morning and that the packages should be destroyed “as soon as possible.” The Board voted 5–0 to keep opposing List. Even if the judge says “no freeze” tomorrow, that ruling applies only to this lawsuit. It is not a finding that the observer complaints were false. It is not a finding that the PRA is closed.
It is not a command to run the shredder before anyone investigates.
If the process was clean, the boxes are harmless. If it was not, they are the last check. You do not get to treat the observation law as optional and the destruction law as sacred.
Keep the paper until someone actually answers the affidavits. Shelf space is cheap. After the shredder, there is nothing left to be accountable to.
Today, 8:30 a.m. Sit down. Phones off. The gallery is public.
