Shasta County Clerk and Registrar of Voters Clint Curtis plans to hire in a consulting role Tina Peters, the former Colorado county clerk who was convicted and went to prison for tampering with election equipment — an announcement that set off deep concern across California.
U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla reacted to the news in a statement posted on Aug. 17.
“This should be stopped immediately: Shasta County Registrar Clint Curtis is trying to hire election-denier Tina Peters to collude with the Trump Administration’s election mischief. In 2024, Peters was convicted on 7 counts of election interference. Americans – and Californians – deserve nothing but safe, secure, and free elections – without political interference and partisan loyalists beholden to Trump,” said Padilla.
Asked his reaction to Padilla’s statement, Curtis told the Record Searchlight in an Aug. 17 interview, “If I was (Peters) I’d sue him. He’s trying to prevent her from getting a job.”
Peters’ 9-year sentence for a breach of voting systems in Mesa County, Colorado was cut in half by Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on May 15, and Peters was released from custody on parole on June 1.
Peters was convicted of four felonies and three misdemeanors in October 2024 for allowing a man affiliated with My Pillow chief executive Mike Lindell to misuse a security card and gain access to voting equipment and copy sensitive data in 2021. The voting machine data and passwords were later leaked on social media.
According to Deputy County Executive Officer Stewart Buettell, no formal application or proposal has been submitted to replace current Assistant Registrar of Voters Brent Turner.
Curtis also said that no application has been submitted by Peters at this time.
The county declined to comment further on the situation.
Curtis told the newspaper he reached out to Peters to replace Turner in a consulting role, and that Peters expressed interest in taking the position.
“She said she would come and help me out. She’d basically be coming in to fill that role (assistant registrar of voters), but she’d be coming in as a consultant because the county is so weird right now that they’d just slow me down and not let anybody in here anyway,” said Curtis.
As a consultant, Curtis said the position would free Peters to fulfill obligations in Colorado and Washington D.C., while supervising on-site in Shasta County when she is able.
Curtis said that, as a consultant, Peters would not have access to elections systems that she had in Mesa County.
“As a consultant, it also allows me to protect her, to make sure no one’s thinking she’s gonna play with machines or anything, because she won’t have a log on. It’ll be just like me and Brent. We don’t have a log on to any of the systems,” said Curtis.
Curtis also said hiring Peters in a consulting role may allow him to circumvent interference from the county, who he said could disapprove a contract to hire her as assistant registrar of voters. If the county does try to interfere in the hiring process, Curtis said he plans to sue them.
Curtis was unaware if there are any rules against hiring convicted criminals in the elections office, but said if there are “we’ll fight them.”
Buettell did not directly address a question asking if Curtis, as elections chief, may hire whomever he wants.
Of letting go of Turner, Curtis said: “He couldn’t take the hostile work environment, he just kept getting sicker and sicker, and finally he had to take off.”
Curtis has repeatedly alleged that a contingent of elections office employees are sabotaging the office’ operations and creating a hostile work environment. Curtis was recently censured by the Shasta County Board of Supervisors in connection to substantiated findings of his managerial misconduct against employees, and was reprimanded in a statement by Buettell for “ongoing and flagrant violations” of personnel rules.
If hired, Peters would replace Turner when his sick leave expires on Sept. 4, according to a statement Curtis made on the local radio show Jefferson State of Mind on Aug. 16.
Curtis said he believes Peters’ allegations of fraud in the 2020 presidential election, but does not condone her decision to breach election security measures.
“It’s not the way you do it. And if she talked to me, I would have told her how to do it. What you’ve got to do is you you’ve got to figure out your issues and then you’ve got to get the Department of Justice or the Federal Bureau of Investigation involved. Same thing I’m doing here with the ballots, because you don’t want to try and do any self help, because it’ll only get you in trouble.”
Curtis noted in the interview that he’s known Peters “for a long time.”
Supervisor Matt Plummer expressed concern over Peters’ criminal background in an interview with the Record Searchlight, but said the board would have no power to curtail Curtis’ decision.
Plummer said there could be issues with budgetary allocation should Curtis decide to create a new position for Peters, instead of directly replacing Turner in his current role, but was not certain.
Supervisor Chris Kelstrom similarly said that Curtis is an elected official in charge of hiring elections office employees and that the board has no oversight over his decision. Kelstrom had no comment regarding Peters’ criminal background.
Peters and the California Secretary of State’s Office were not able to be reached for comment before deadline on Aug. 17.
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 clerk defends plan to hire Tina Peters in an elections role
Reporting by Drew Askeland, Redding Record Searchlight / Redding Record Searchlight
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By Drew Askeland, Redding Record Searchlight | USA TODAY Network
