Zealous election denier behind in key race for Shasta County registrar
Your morning catch-up: Shasta County’s registrar race, California’s battle against dengue and more big stories
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In Shasta County, the most bitterly contested race in Tuesday’s primary election was for a role once considered mundane: registrar of voters.
It featured Clint Curtis, a torchbearer of the election denialism movement who was appointed as registrar last year after saying he wanted to hand-count ballots and bragging that he had worked with Mike Lindell, the MyPillow chief executive and prominent pro-Trump conspiracy theorist.
His opponent: former Shasta County deputy registrar Joanna Francescut, who had worked in the elections office for 17 years before Curtis fired her a few days into his new job.
The race in deeply conservative Northern California has, in many ways, become a harbinger for the sticking power of election conspiracy theories amplified by President Trump, who remains fixated on his 2020 election loss and has called on the federal government to “nationalize” state-run elections in response what he says is widespread fraud.
Preliminary election results posted by the registrar’s office early Wednesday morning showed Francescut with a comfortable lead over Curtis.
A controversial figure
Curtis, a 67-year-old attorney whose claims about rigged voting machines stretch to the early 2000s, was appointed last spring by the Shasta County Board of Supervisors to fill the position vacated by two previous registrars who had resigned for health reasons. He lived in Florida then, had no previous ties to the area, and had never run an election.
Shasta County made national headlines in 2023 when the supervisors ditched Dominion voting machines based on unfounded claims of fraud and opted to hand-count ballots for more than 110,000 registered voters — quickly prompting a new state law that banned them from doing so.
The elections office has been embroiled in controversy under Curtis’ leadership.
He eliminated nine of the vast rural county’s 13 ballot dropboxes. He accused Francescut and other elections staffers, without evidence, of stuffing ballots to sabotage the electoral chances of conservative Republicans. He called on federal authorities to raid the elections office and seize ballots.
Threats to ‘throat punch’ staffers
This spring, the county released the findings of two personnel investigations into Curtis’ conduct that were spurred by concerns raised by elections employees and their union representatives. An internal investigation and an external probe by Oppenheimer Investigations Group found that Curtis made phone calls related to his own campaign during county work hours and casually threatened to kill, spank, slap or “throat punch” staffers.
He threatened to have one employee dragged out of the office by their hair, according to an internal investigation report by Monica Fugitt, the county’s director of support services.
“Mr. Curtis has demonstrated a clear pattern of unprofessional and abusive conduct toward staff,” wrote Fugitt, who recommended Curtis be physically separated from the elections staff, working at a different physical location or remotely because of his “pervasive abusive conduct.”
Curtis has denied the findings and, in a news conference last month, called them “a hack job.”
Vote counting delays and a ‘haunted’ building
In an interview in Redding earlier this year, Curtis told me that “crazy socialist people” didn’t like him because he was making elections more transparent and efficient.
Inside the elections office, he created a large room, decked out with American flags, for citizens to observe the vote-counting process. There, he mounted more than a dozen large TV monitors to display close-up video, also streamed online, of election workers’ hands inserting ballots into machines.
The Times could not reach Curtis on Wednesday. He told KRCR-TV Channel 7 that results were slow to update after polls closed because a brief overnight power outage shut down systems throughout the elections office.
“We were down for an hour, we were chugging along, looked like we were going to finish,” Curtis told the news station. “And we have kind of a haunted building here. It has some weird electrical panel that … no one knows how to program anymore.”
“Right at midnight,” he said, “it will shut the power down and then come back on a minute later.”
Asked about her early lead, Francescut said in a text message Wednesday afternoon that she was “overwhelmed by the support I received from our community.”
“It’s important to remember there are many ballots left to count [and] these are the preliminary results,” she wrote. “As staff continue the hard work of ensuring every eligible ballot is counted, I’m eager to see additional ballots added to the count.”
Today’s top stories
California 2026 election
- How Mayor Karen Bass weathered a brutal campaign and won a spot in the Nov. 3 runoff.
- Does Nithya Raman still have a chance? California’s uncounted votes could help Democrats.
- There are still 700,000-plus ballots left to process in L.A. County, election officials estimate.
California’s battle against dengue
- Google is seeking federal approval to unleash millions of bacteria-infected, non-biting mosquitoes in the Golden State.
- A new study estimates that 18.2 million Californians live in a region where conditions are likely suitable for local dengue transmission.
CalFresh eligibility is changing
- Some Californians will now have to clear an additional hurdle to maintain their eligibility for food assistance, courtesy of Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
- Starting June 1, many CalFresh recipients ages 18 to 64 without disabilities must meet new work or community engagement rules to keep monthly food assistance.
What else is going on
- With Highway 1 open, Big Sur braces for its busiest summer in years.
- Rebecca Grossman and an ex-Dodger were found liable for the crash that killed two boys; a jury awards $176 million.
- USC faculty groups vote to unionize and the university vows to challenge it.
Commentary and opinions
- One thing was clear on election night: Angelenos want change, writes columnist Gustavo Arellano.
- Columnist Mark Z. Barabak talks youth, money, gender and other takeaways from California’s crazy gubernatorial primary.
- Bass clears the first hurdle, but if Pratt holds off Raman, the mayoral race could be a holy war, writes columnist Steve Lopez.
This morning’s must-read
The long-term dream is a permanent “Long Beach Bowl.” Until then, the temporary F&M Bank Amphitheater of Long Beach has 11,000 seats with views of the Queen Mary from the nosebleeds.
For your downtime
Going out
- Restaurants: Here are 31 restaurants and bars hosting World Cup watch parties in L.A.
- Shopping: How vintage-obsessed millennial parents are driving L.A.’s booming kids’ clothing resale market.
- Woodworking classes: Here are 6 L.A. spots to carve out your woodworking dreams.
Staying in
- Podcasts: In the debut episode of “The De Los Podcast,” Latin Grammy-nominated singer and actor Leslie Grace talks her new album and the lost “Batgirl” movie.
- Television: JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette’s “Love Story” is a “lens” on the “intensity” of fame, stars say.
- Recipe: Here’s a recipe for buttered spaghetti with dried shrimp and sake.
- ✏️ Get our free daily crossword puzzle, sudoku, word search and jigsaw games.
A question for you: What’s your favorite summer beach getaway?
Jonathan says, “For the past several years, I take my children and grandchildren to Cayucos, a very small beach town on the Central Coast. Discovered when my girlfriend (now wife of 49 years) and I searched for remote and lesser known getaways, I now share with all of my family. Incredibly, at least for me, the tiny town has remained relatively obscure from the ravages Instagram and social media have wrought on so few remaining small California beach towns. Great vibes that harken back to more innocent times.”
Email us at essentialcalifornia@latimes.com, and your response might appear in the newsletter this week.
And finally ... your photo of the day
Today’s great photo is from Times staff writer Christopher Reynolds in Arizona along a stretch of Route 66, which turns 100 this year.
Have a great day, from the Essential California team
Hailey Branson-Potts, staff writer
Hugo Martín, assistant editor, fast break desk
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew Campa, weekend writer
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters
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