Two people hoping to be volunteer poll workers for the June 2 election said they were told to leave an April 16 training session because they questioned Shasta County elections chief Clint Curtis for making political comments during the training.
Both Joyce Lively and Janet Ugale said they became uncomfortable during the training when Curtis brought up Riverside County, where Curtis has claimed there was a discrepancy between the number of ballots cast and the number of ballots counted in the November 2025 election.
“You have a slight problem of having more votes than voters, just a little problem. You should never have that,” Curtis said in a YouTube video of his presentation in Riverside County posted by the Riverside Election Integrity Team in February.
Riverside County Registrar of Voters Art Tinoco has called such allegations unfounded. He did not return a phone message seeking comment for this story.
Curtis went to Riverside County to cast doubt on voting machines and said the process he implemented in Shasta County in the November election — the first he ran as registrar of voters ― “neuters” voting machines. He also said “you can’t trust the machines.”
In November, Curtis deployed a process that featured a publicly available ballot tabulation livestream that he says brings more transparency to the process. But the new prototype brought mixed results as Curtis missed his self-imposed deadline that all precinct ballots would be counted by 11 p.m., three hours after the polls closed.
Curtis also was invited by the Riverside Election Integrity Team to address the Riverside County Board of Supervisors when he was down there in February, according to news reports.
After Curtis’ visit to the Inland Empire, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican running for governor, seized more than half a million 2025 election ballots to investigate election fraud allegations. But the California Supreme Court on April 8 ordered the sheriff to temporarily halt his probe.
Lively, who lives in Redding, said whether one agrees or disagrees with Curtis, bringing up Riverside County at a poll training session was not appropriate and she said she raised her hand and told him that on April 16.
Curtis’ response was to tell Lively that what happened in Riverside County was fact and that he wanted to prevent it from happening here, she said.
“I followed that up with, ‘I would prefer we not talk politics.’ At that point he said, ‘You are dismissed,’“ Lively said.
Curtis reiterated to the Record Searchlight in an email that “we are attempting to make sure that Shasta County does not follow down the same path of Riverside County.”
He said poll worker training focuses on allowing voters to vote quick without having to wait in long lines. It also will ensure that poll workers are trained so that “we do not have the same issue as Riverside.”
But Curtis did not answer why he visited Riverside County in February.
Lively is upset because she thinks it’s apparent that Curtis is picking poll workers based on their politics.
Curtis told the Record Searchlight he dismissed Lively because she was trying to control the meeting.
“We have had many poll workers train from all political spectrums but that one came in with a bad attitude and wanted to disrupt the meeting from the beginning,” Curtis wrote in an email to the Record Searchlight. “I have trained poll workers that have come in wearing my opponent’s campaign buttons. None of that matters to me.”
Ugale, who lives in Igo, said when Lively was leaving, she told her that she would probably be following her.
“My blood was just boiling because of the way she (Lively) was treated,” Ugale said. “I was upset about (Curtis’) comments myself.”
An election worker walked Lively out and then returned to Ugale and told her she should leave, too, if she felt the same way, Ugale said, adding, “So I got up and left.”
It isn’t the first time that Curtis has been accused of using his office to campaign while casting doubt on past elections. Curtis and former Shasta County Assistant Registrar of Voters Joanna Francescut are running for county clerk/registrar of voters on the June 2 ballot. A registrar of voters candidates’ forum will happen at 5 p.m. Wednesday, April 22, at the Redding Library.
In January, Curtis, hosting Republican candidates for California governor at the downtown Redding elections office, raised allegations of ballot stuffing by his predecessors without providing verified evidence.
After investigating the allegations that Curtis was campaigning on county time, county supervisors decided to take no action.
Curtis also has said that the previous standard for elections was to “hide everything,” though Curtis provides no verified evidence for his claims, and legal proceedings have found no evidence of wrongdoing in past Shasta County elections.
Curtis suggested that Lively and Ugale came to the training together.
“I never met her anywhere,” Lively said. “I did not meet her until … after we had both left the (training). When we walked out of the office, at that point, she introduced herself to me and we did exchange phone numbers.”
Both Lively and Ugale were volunteer poll workers in Shasta County in the November 2025 election. They said Curtis did not conduct the training that they went to for that election.
Lively recounted her experience at the April 16 training on NextDoor and said she has been accused of being a plant and a “rabble rouser.”
“I think it would be pretty difficult (to disrupt), if I didn’t know he was going to be there, nor know if he was going to bring this issue (Riverside County) up,” she said.
David Benda covers business, development and anything else that comes up for the USA TODAY Network in Redding. He also writes the weekly “Buzz on the Street” column. He’s part of a team of dedicated reporters that investigate wrongdoing, cover breaking news and tell other stories about your community. Reach him on Twitter @DavidBenda_RS or by phone at 1-530-338-8323. To support and sustain this work, please subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: Poll workers told to leave Shasta training for opposing politics talk
Reporting by David Benda, Redding Record Searchlight / Redding Record Searchlight
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