A MAGA County’s Top Election Official Wants to Hire Election Denial Superstar Tina Peters

The Republican registrar of voters in Shasta County, California, Clint Curtis, has announced plans to hire Tina Peters, a prominent election denial figure, as his deputy. Peters, the former clerk of Mesa County, Colorado, was convicted in 2024 on seven counts related to election interference after allowing unauthorised access to voting equipment as part of an effort to prove the 2020 US presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump. Her lawyer says she is considering the role, citing alleged "monkey business" in how the Shasta County election was run, while Curtis says she would not have access to the county's voting system but has declined to say what she would actually do.

Peters was sentenced to nine years in prison but had her sentence commuted by Colorado's governor in May following pressure from Trump. Curtis himself has a long history of election conspiracy claims, dating back over two decades, and has faced internal and external investigations into allegations that he threatened and retaliated against his own staff, which he denies. He recently lost re-election to Joanna Francescut, a former colleague he had fired, and was censured 3-1 by the county's Board of Supervisors last week. Democratic US senator Alex Padilla has publicly criticised the proposed hire as an attempt to "collude with the Trump administration's election mischief."