“She’s got to check it all out, make sure it’s okay, make sure there’s not any roadblocks in there that we don’t know about [or are] illegal, so you got to walk through the whole mess,” said Shasta County registrar Clint Curtis, describing why a convicted felon under Colorado parole review had not yet agreed to help run California’s 2026 midterm elections.
Clint Curtis’s hiring plan and the consultant proposal
Curtis, the top election official for Shasta County, said he offered Tina Peters a role as a consultant to assist with the 2026 elections but that she has not accepted. Earlier this month Curtis had told local outlets he intended to hire Peters as assistant registrar of voters; in a CyberScoop interview he framed the consultant offer as a faster path to bring immediate help than the longer process of hiring a full‑time employee.
Curtis described an expansive consultant role — helping him oversee the registrar’s office and directing his full‑time staff of about 12 — and said he expected to remain in control of county elections. “There’s no way she would get out of bounds on me,” he said. Curtis also said he “talked to her and basically, she’s very even tempered, she’s not wild and crazy which is good.”
Parole conditions in Colorado that could limit Peters’ movement
A Colorado Department of Corrections official told CyberScoop that as part of Peters’ parole conditions she must be employed and live in Colorado. The official said Peters can request a transfer to another state but must first receive permission from both states and go through a formal review process. Peters’ prison sentence was commuted in June; the CyberScoop account says she served less than two years of the sentence she received following a 2024 conviction.
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Get a security leadWhat Curtis says consultants can — and cannot — access
Curtis drew a sharp distinction between a staff hire and a consultant on the question of technical access. “If she’s on staff she’d have logins to the network, logins in the system, she’d basically have full access,” Curtis said. “But consultants don’t have any of that, nor should they, right?” He said consultants are “basically there to actually watch other people do it and make sure they do it right rather than do it themselves.”
Curtis used that distinction to argue Peters’ past conviction “doesn’t matter” because, under his plan, a consultant would not have local access to county email or election systems. The proposal thus hinges on limiting digital and network privileges while assigning supervisory responsibilities on the office floor.
Reactions from county and state officials
The Shasta County Board of Supervisors has already moved to censure Curtis. Earlier this month the board censured him following investigations into allegations of verbal abuse and threatening language to staff. The board said Curtis was hired “to enhance transparency, strengthen election integrity and restore trust,” but concluded that while “some progress has been achieved” he “has failed significantly in other core responsibilities, undermining the very principles he was appointed to uphold.”
The county board labeled some of Curtis’ claims about the 2024 election “frivolous” and “welcomed” investigations by state and federal authorities. Curtis had asserted that some mail‑in ballots were different sizes and looked, felt and “smelled” different from normal ballots; he also said he did not follow up with the county’s ballot manufacturer, saying he lacked investigative authority, and said he could not answer how many instances of voter fraud his office had confirmed.
At the state level, the press office for California Secretary of State Shirley Weber told CyberScoop that county hires “must comply with California law, security and confidentiality requirements, and maintain the integrity of our state’s elections and election processes.” Weber’s office added: “The mere thought of letting someone near any part of California’s elections when that person was convicted of serious election-related crimes while serving as an election official, is simply outrageous.” The office said it is monitoring the situation and “will act within our authority and work closely with law enforcement officials to ensure that all elections in our state remain transparent, safe, and fair for all eligible voters.”
What this means for technologists, state election officials, and voters
- Technologists and security teams: They will be focused on the difference Curtis describes between staff and consultant access — whether procedural controls, network accounts, and physical access can be implemented quickly enough to match the narrow timeline Curtis described for early voting.
- State election officials and oversight bodies: California’s Secretary of State office has signaled active monitoring and potential action; state officials will be watching residency and parole constraints cited by Colorado corrections and the legal permissions required for any cross‑state employment or transfer requests.
- Voters and local staff: The Shasta County Board’s censure and Curtis’ own comments about supervision and ballot integrity claims signal tensions inside the elections office that could affect public confidence and daily operations in the run‑up to the 2026 midterms.
Curtis said time was pressing: “We start early voting in…30 days, something like that. So we need it quickly, we need to get her in here, tell her what to do, set people up and get it ready to go.” He also warned that delays in clearing Peters’ legal roadblocks could prevent her from providing the assistance he says the office needs. Peters’ lawyer, Peter Ticktin’s representative, provided CyberScoop a statement saying Peters “is giving consideration to helping in the efforts in Shasta County” and calling out what Ticktin described as “monkey business” in how the county handled an election.
The next factual steps to watch are concrete: whether Peters accepts a consultant role, whether Colorado’s parole process allows any transfer or out‑of‑state work, and whether California election authorities or law enforcement take formal steps in response to Curtis’ hiring plan. Those decisions will determine whether Curtis’ proposal remains a local administrative move or becomes a point of broader state scrutiny.
