A northern California county that has become a hotbed of activism for those who sow doubts about the reliability of voting machines plans to hire Tina Peters, the prominent Colorado election denier recently released from prison, to work on elections.
Clint Curtis, the top election official in Shasta county, told the Guardian he plans to hire Peters as a consultant to replace Brent Turner, his top deputy, who has been on medical leave. He said Peters would not have access to the county’s voting system and did not directly respond when asked what her responsibilities would be. Plans to hire Peters, who is still on parole and must receive permission to travel outside Colorado, were first reported by Action News Now.
Last year, the Shasta county board of supervisors appointed Curtis, a Florida-based attorney who had never before overseen an elections office, to serve as the county clerk and registrar of voters. Curtis, who opposes the use of voting machines and has long argued US elections are being manipulated, vowed to overhaul the elections and set an example for the rest of the US.
But his tenure has been controversial. Earlier this year investigative reports conducted by the county and an outside body concluded that he had created a hostile work environment and made violent threats against workers. Curtis has denied those claims. Last week, the same board that appointed Curtis censured him, and denounced what it described as his “ongoing and flagrant violations” of county personnel rules, pointing to policies preventing elected officials from “making unfounded allegations that have not been investigated”.
Peters, the former top election official in Mesa county, Colorado, was convicted of four felonies and three misdemeanors in 2024 after she allowed an activist affiliated with Lindell to impersonate a county employee and attend an upgrade of the county’s Dominion voting software.
The hiring of Peters was alarming, said Matt Crane, the executive director of the Colorado county clerk’s association.
“When it comes to actually administering secure, lawful elections, Tina Peters is the last person anyone should be looking to for expertise,” he added.
Jena Griswold, Colorado’s secretary of state, said in a statement: “Peters was convicted of four felonies and three misdemeanors related to breaching her own voting equipment while county clerk. It is troubling that she would be in a position to have direct influence on election administration.”
Since being released from prison, Peters has hit the Maga media circuit and continued to try to undermine faith in American elections. She continues to assert, falsely, that votes were flipped in 2020, and has urged Trump to declare a national emergency ahead of the 2026 midterms, according to the Atlantic.
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