Court Halts Shasta County Measure That Eliminates Most Mail-in Voting — For Now

A judge successful a Northern California region that has go a poster kid for predetermination skepticism has halted a voter-approved measurement that would dramatically reshape elections there, including by eliminating astir voting by message and requiring ballots to beryllium hand-counted.

Shasta County Superior Court Judge Benjamin L. Hanna connected Friday issued a preliminary injunction that temporarily blocks Measure B, a citizens’ inaugural approved by 56% of voters successful nan June primary.

None of nan measure’s sweeping changes will beryllium implemented for nan November wide election, and each progressive registered voters successful Shasta County will person ballots by mail, arsenic mandated by authorities law, nan region said successful a statement.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber, nan state’s apical elections official, sued Shasta County successful mid-June, days aft nan primary, arguing that Measure B violates aggregate authorities predetermination laws and must beryllium struck down earlier nan November election.

The lawsuit initially was revenge successful California’s 3rd District Court of Appeal, but judges location declined to reappraisal it, saying nan lawsuit first should proceed done nan proceedings court.

In his ruling past week, Hanna wrote that he was halting implementation of Measure B while nan lawsuit proceeds because allowing it to spell into effect now “would apt consequence successful nan disenfranchisement of galore Shasta County voters who would beryllium intelligibly eligible to ballot nether authorities law, but would not meet nan improperly constrictive criteria to ballot nether Measure B.”

The measure, Hanna wrote, “seeks to create a full caller electoral strategy that would require creation of caller elector rolls and re-registration of existing voters.” Doing truthful “would beryllium “difficult nether normal clip frames, fto unsocial 3 months earlier nan November wide election.”

Hanna cited nan state’s “high likelihood” of occurrence successful nan lawsuit.

Weber said successful a connection that nan judge’s determination “made clear what we already cognize — creating unnecessary barriers does not fortify our democracy, it weakens it.”

The caller nationalist study room astatine nan Shasta County elections office.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

The Shasta Election Task Force, nan citizens’ group that wrote nan inaugural and collected thousands of signatures to get it connected nan ballot, said successful a statement that Measure B “was enacted by nan voters” and that they do not judge nan authorities has established a lawful ground for blocking it “merely because Sacramento objects to nan predetermination reforms they adopted.”

The conflict complete predetermination integrity successful mostly-rural, profoundly blimpish Shasta County comes arsenic President Trump — who remains fixated connected his 2020 predetermination loss — is calling for nan national government to “nationalize” state-run elections and fighting to restrict voting by mail.

Measure B gained fame amid Trump’s baseless claims of cheating. California’s anticipated but painfully slow ballot count aft nan June superior — mostly nan consequence of nan labor-intensive process for tallying millions of mailed ballots — only fueled specified claims. But it besides prompted Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic authorities lawmakers this summertime to allocate $40 million to thief counties velocity up nan process.

The citizens’ inaugural approved successful Shasta County would limit voting by mail, nan method utilized by an overwhelming majority of Californians, to only “the infirm, military, and U.S. citizens surviving overseas.”

Measure B would require elections to beryllium held successful personification connected a azygous time and create a abstracted region elector registration strategy disconnected from nan state’s azygous system. It besides would require residents to coming government-issued photograph recognition to formed a ballot (as would a statewide ballot measure that voters will determine upon successful November).

The measurement drew steep opposition from galore civilian and voting authorities organizations — including nan ACLU, nan League of Women Voters, Disability Rights California, nan Asian Law Caucus, and Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California — who said it would disenfranchise voters.

One salient protagonist of Measure B told The Times successful May that he expected nan region to beryllium sued if voters approved it.

“We don’t for illustration nan authorities laws,” said Richard Gallardo, a leader of Save Shasta Elections. “We want to enact our ain section predetermination reform. … There’s a batch successful there, so, yes, we do expect nan authorities to writer us.”

Gallardo, an predetermination integrity activistic who erstwhile tried, unsuccessfully, to spot each of nan region supervisors under citizen’s arrest during nan COVID-19 pandemic, is among nan “real parties successful interest” named successful nan state’s lawsuit. He said he believed nan onus was connected nan region to “fully and fervently” take sides Measure B successful tribunal because it’s “the will of nan voters.”

Richard Gallardo, a leader of nan citizens’ group that wrote Shasta County’s Measure B, is blocked by a defender successful November 2022 aft attempting to spell into a restricted area to observe ballots astatine nan elections agency successful Redding. At correct is then-assistant region registrar Joanna Francescut.

(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

In caller years, nan predetermination skepticism activity bolstered by Trump has recovered a beardown foothold successful Shasta County.

In 2023, nan Shasta County Board of Supervisors, swept up successful unfounded predetermination fraud allegations promoted by nan president, ditched Dominion voting machines and opted to hand-count ballots for nan county’s much than 110,000 registered voters — quickly prompting a caller authorities law that banned them from doing so.

Last year, nan supervisors appointed Clint Curtis — a Florida-based lawyer whose claims astir rigged voting machines agelong backmost to the early 2000s — to beryllium nan Shasta County registrar of voters, a position vacated by 2 erstwhile registrars who resigned for wellness reasons, saying they were exacerbated by nan accent of nan job.

Curtis promptly eliminated 9 of nan immense county’s 13 ballot driblet boxes. He accused his predecessors successful nan registrar’s office, without evidence, of stuffing ballots to sabotage blimpish Republicans. And he called for national authorities to ambush his agency and prehend ballots.

Curtis — a vocal proponent of hand-counting ballots who has worked pinch MyPillow Chief Executive and pro-Trump conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell — advocated for Measure B and is named arsenic a suspect successful nan state’s lawsuit.

He was voted retired of office successful June and will beryllium replaced successful January by Joanna Francescut, nan erstwhile longtime adjunct registrar, whom he fired.