Intentional Election Interference or Incompetence?
County IT and HR Departments are Slow to Respond to Requests
REDDING — Remaining staff in the Shasta County Elections Office are working under heightened pressure to prepare for the November 3 election while short-handed, according to confidential sources inside the office. Five employees are out on sick or medical leave, and two more have recently left their positions. Two of those on leave abruptly took sick leave after security video showed them involved in entry into the locked ballot balancing room without using an employee key card near closing time on June 4, 2026.
A manager has not returned to work since Registrar of Voters Clint Curtis placed a padlock on the ballot storage room. Employees who went out on leave did not train remaining staff, sources said, forcing newer workers to hunt for procedures and access to election documents. County Information Technology has been slow to grant computer access needed for the work, and Human Resources/Support Services has delayed reclassifications required for certain employees to perform their duties. New hires have waited weeks for computer access.
Even routine requests move slowly. The back room where ballots are processed remains dimly lit, with two temporary lights, because the county has not replaced a faulty switch controlling the overhead lighting despite requests.
This week, employees found themselves locked out of the building because their keycards suddenly stopped working to gain entry through the main office doors. IT has been called to resolve the problem.
The person responsible for coordinating roughly 30 in-office, extra-help workers went on medical leave without leaving information on where the list of workers was kept. That list holds contact information such as phone numbers and email addresses. When the new worker contacted Human Resources for help, HR provided a list that included people who never showed up for work in the last election. The new employee then had to check and eliminate names—work sources said HR should have handled that.
The June video and the shred bin
Confidential sources described a sequence they believe points to sabotage. Security video from near closing time on June 4 shows Employee #1, carrying a backpack, entering the locked ballot balancing room without using a key card. Sources said Employee #2 stood near the elevator and stairs, acting as a lookout. Employees #1 and #2 are responsible for bringing in precinct cages containing ballot boxes and related materials, including Balancing Statements precinct workers fill out in green pen. Those sheets should go into sealed red bags for transfer to the Elections Office, but in some cases precinct workers fail to follow instructions and may place them in folders or ballot boxes. In the ballot balancing room, three employees inspect the packages; if a Ballot Statement is missing, they prepare a staff copy labeled “original missing.” Several Ballot Statements were found to be missing.
Inside the room, on the left, is a bin for papers to be shredded. The next morning, after the after-hours entry, Employee #1 came into the room, looked in the shred bin, and said words to the effect of, “Look here what I found in the shredding bin! A Ballot Statement that shouldn’t be here!” Sources in the ballot balancing room said she had placed it there herself the previous day. She then emailed the County CEO, the Administrative Office, County Supervisors, and others in a way that implied Curtis and his staff did not know what they were doing.
When Employee #1 exited the ballot balancing room on the video, Employee #3 came out of the elevator and noticed the look of surprise on the faces of the other two employees. Employee #1 tried to distract Employee #3 by talking about the ballot cages and saying they were a mess. Employee #4 walked by and also noticed the strange behavior. The day after Curtis revealed the existence of this video on social media, both Employee #1 and Employee #2 went out on medical leave. Sources said that, to their knowledge, no one in the county has investigated the incident, and the Administrative Office has continued to berate Curtis for bringing the information to the public.
Employees who work in the ballot balancing room told sources they believe there has been a coordinated effort to sabotage workflows in the office in order to undermine Curtis. They said Curtis has let these matters roll off his shoulders in a way most people would not under similar circumstances.
Public context
Curtis has previously shown media and discussed security footage of an employee bypassing the badge reader on the ballot balancing room door by sliding a card through the latch and entering with a large backpack. Shasta Unfiltered previously obtained related video under a Public Records Act request and posted it to its YouTube channel. In August, Curtis publicly alleged sabotage involving the footage. The county has criticized his statements as unproven. Curtis remains in office through January 3, 2027, after losing the June primary to former Assistant Registrar Joanna Francescut; he certified the June results on July 2.
The office is at 1643 Market Street in Redding. The November 3 general election is less than a month away. Sources said the combination of absences, delayed support from IT and HR, missing institutional knowledge, and unresolved questions about the June video has left remaining staff trying to reconstruct procedures while handling election preparations. Curtis has had new metal plates installed on the doors to prevent unauthorized access.
Note: We corrected an error in the original version of this article to reflect the number of in-office, extra help workers on the extra help list.
