A discrepancy discovered while workers reconciled Shasta County’s early voting and the removal of voting documents from a locked cabinet has opened up the Elections Office to scrutiny from the California Secretary of State.
Deputy County Executive Officer Stewart Buetell, in a statement released Monday, June 8, addressed the matter at the request of the Board of Supervisors who voted to release as much information as is “legally allowable as quickly as possible.”
The incident started when county elections workers reconciling early voting in the June 2 primary found discrepancies, “suggesting a small number of additional ballots may have been handed out to voters prior to election day by one employee.”
A reconciliation of the early vote is a standard process after an election, Buetell explained.
Because of this, Buetell said certain reports “may not have been properly balanced before being run from the Election Information Management System.”
According to verifiedvoting.org, the Election Information Management System “is used by some jurisdictions as an electronic poll book system.”
During this incident, at the request of County Clerk and Registrar of Voters Clint Curtis, an employee removed and made copies of voting documents that contained voter information including names, addresses, date of birth, signature, phone number and reason a voter requested a new ballot, according to the statement.
The original documents were in a locked cabinet in the downtown office until the employees who were working on the reconciliation returned and continued the work later, Buetell said. They were removed and copied, and after, the documents were securely locked in another employee’s office, he said.
Buetell provided assurance that at no time did original ballots or elections material ever leave the downtown elections office at 1643 Market St.
Curtis, too, in a statement he made to the Record Searchlight, also was emphatic about what became of those documents. He said, “nothing was taken outside the office” and that he is still waiting to hear whether additional ballots were handed out.
Buetell said the county will not be initiating litigation against the elections office or Curtis at this time because the matter falls under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of State.
Curtis, a licensed attorney in New York, also took issue with County Counsel Joseph Larmour’s handling of the matter.
He said, “it is another Larmour harassment and I will file yet another bar complaint against him.”
This would be the second bar complaint that Curtis said he would file against Larmour in just days.
Curtis also told the newspaper he was planning to file a bar complaint against Larmour following the special Shasta County Board of Supervisors meeting on June 6.
The Secretary of State’s press team said they have “no comment at this time.”
It is unclear if the Secretary of State’s Office will take any action against the elections office or Curtis.
When Curtis contacted the Record Searchlight on June 6, he had a different take on the situation, calling it a “cover up.”
On June 7, he emailed the Record Searchlight a heavily redacted copy of a letter that he planned to send to the Secretary of State and Department of Justice.
In it, the elections chief described a situation in which a worker delayed delivering to him official “receipts and information for the ballots that were printed and distributed over the counter at Market Street.”
Similar to the events detailed in the press release, Curtis said in the letter that he eventually received copies of these election materials, which the aforementioned individual had delayed giving to him.
At the end of the letter, Curtis said that some unknown individual “acted insubordinate and has placed the accuracy of this Federal election at risk.”
The Record Searchlight was unable to independently verify the accuracy of Curtis’ claims.
This story was updated to add new information.
Drew Askeland covers Redding and Shasta County government issues, as well as anything else that needs reporting for the Record Searchlight and USA Today Network. Reach him at drew.askeland@redding.com or (530) 225-8247. Please subscribe today to support our newsroom’s commitment to public service journalism.
This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: Shasta County voting documents, ballot data at center of inquiry
Reporting by Drew Askeland, Redding Record Searchlight / Redding Record Searchlight
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By Drew Askeland, Redding Record Searchlight | USA TODAY Network
