A northern California county that has grow to be a hotbed of activism for individuals who sow doubts concerning the reliability of voting machines plans to rent Tina Peters, the outstanding Colorado election denier lately launched from jail, to work on elections.
Clint Curtis, the highest election official in Shasta county, advised the Guardian he plans to rent Peters as a guide to switch Brent Turner, his prime deputy, who has been on medical depart. He stated Peters wouldn’t have entry to the county’s voting system and didn’t immediately reply when requested what her obligations can be. Plans to rent Peters, who continues to be on parole and should obtain permission to journey outdoors of Colorado, have been first reported by Motion Information Now.
Shasta county, a conservative area dwelling to 182,000 individuals, has emerged as a middle of the US election denialism motion lately. In 2023, the county’s governing physique unsuccessfully sought to remake the voting course of by chopping ties with the voting machine firm Dominion Voting Techniques and implementing a hand-count system that consultants warned can be pricey and much much less correct. The MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, one of many main promoters of falsehoods about election fraud within the US, stated he would assist the county’s effort. The state in the end blocked Shasta’s plans. As well as, a number of candidates who misplaced their race for native workplace have embraced baseless conspiracy theories about election fraud and sued to overturn outcomes.
Final 12 months, the Shasta county board of supervisors appointed Curtis, a Florida-based legal professional who had by no means earlier than overseen an elections workplace, to function the county clerk and registrar of voters. Curtis, who opposes the usage of voting machines and has lengthy argued US elections are being manipulated, vowed to overtake the elections and set an instance for the remainder of the US.
However his tenure has been controversial. Earlier this 12 months investigative reviews performed by the county and an out of doors physique concluded that he had created a hostile work surroundings and made violent threats in opposition to staff. Curtis has denied these claims. Final week, the identical board that appointed Curtis censured him, and denounced what it described as his “ongoing and flagrant violations” of county personnel guidelines, pointing to insurance policies stopping elected officers from “making unfounded allegations that haven’t been investigated”.
Curtis accused employees of “sabotaging elections” and stated he deliberate to sue the county, telling the Guardian: “Every little thing the previous employees accused me of is a lie, and we can show it in court docket.”
Peters, the previous prime election official in Mesa county, Colorado, was convicted of 4 felonies and three misdemeanors in 2024 after she allowed an activist affiliated with Lindell to impersonate a county worker and attend an improve of the county’s Dominion voting software program. The Gateway Pundit, the far-right information web site, subsequently printed screenshots of delicate county info after that breach. Peters was launched from jail in June after Colorado governor Jared Polis, a Democrat, commuted her nine-year jail sentence.
The hiring of Peters is alarming, stated Matt Crane, the manager director of the Colorado county clerk’s affiliation.
“Tina Peters and others within the election-denial motion seem to have discovered one other weak hyperlink within the chain in California,” he stated. “The concept that anybody would convey Tina Peters in as an election knowledgeable is sort of past parody. Perhaps she’s an knowledgeable on leaving ballots sitting in a poll field for months after an election. Perhaps she’s an knowledgeable on committing crimes within the means of making an attempt, and fully failing, to show election fraud.”
“In terms of truly administering safe, lawful elections, Tina Peters is the final particular person anybody needs to be seeking to for experience,” he added.
Jena Griswold, Colorado’s secretary of state, stated in a press release: “Peters was convicted of 4 felonies and three misdemeanors associated to breaching her personal voting gear whereas county clerk. It’s troubling that she can be ready to have direct affect on election administration.”
Securing the discharge of Peters from jail was a celebrated trigger on the correct. Whilst Donald Trump pardoned these concerned with the January 6 assault on the US Capitol and the faux elector scheme in 2020, he couldn’t assist Peters as a result of she was solely convicted of a state crime. Polis, going through mounting strain from the federal authorities to free Peters, ultimately commuted her sentence in Could, saying it was unfairly harsh. Polis overrode suggestions from his personal clemency board in doing so, in response to the New York Instances, and has been rebuked by the Colorado Democratic social gathering.
California senator Alex Padilla, a Democrat, additionally criticized the plan to rent Peters.
“This needs to be stopped instantly: Shasta County Registrar Clint Curtis is making an attempt to rent election-denier Tina Peters to collude with the Trump Administration’s election mischief,” he posted on X.
“Individuals – and Californians – deserve nothing however secure, safe, and free elections – with out political interference and partisan loyalists beholden to Trump.”
Since being launched from jail, Peters has hit the Maga media circuit and continued to try to undermine religion in American elections. She continues to claim, falsely, that votes have been flipped in 2020, and has urged Trump to declare a nationwide emergency forward of the 2026 midterms, in response to the Atlantic. A replica of Peters’s clemency petition, obtained by the Atlantic, stated she wouldn’t have the power to commit related crimes to those she was convicted of as a result of she is now not a clerk.
Curtis’s transfer to rent Peters comes within the closing months of his time in workplace. In June, voters ousted Curtis in favor of Joanna Francescut, a longtime worker of the Shasta county elections workplace who was serving because the assistant registrar when Curtis fired her after taking on the workplace.
In the identical election, Shasta voters backed a measure to require elections to be held in particular person on a single day and successfully ending vote by mail whereas additionally mandating picture ID and a hand-count. The state rapidly sued the county and a choose has quickly blocked the implementation of the measure.