Shasta County voters will weigh a proposal to overhaul the county’s election system on the June primary ballot after a judge declined to block the measure.
Local resident Jennifer Katske filed a lawsuit seeking to keep the measure off the ballot, arguing several provisions would violate state and federal laws.
The proposed charter amendment would make sweeping changes to how elections are conducted, including requiring voter identification at polling places, mandating hand counts of ballots and banning universal vote-by-mail.
Following a hearing Wednesday, Shasta County Superior Court Judge Benjamin Hanna ruled that Katske’s petition was invalid because it could not point to a specific law that requires a county clerk to pull a ballot measure based on its substance.
Hanna did not rule on whether the measure itself is legal. Instead, he said pre-election challenges are an extraordinary step and that any legal review would be more appropriate after voters weigh in.
“That litigation would have the benefit of full and complete briefing and analysis without the severe time constraints that this case has involved,” Hanna said in his ruling.
One of the measure’s proponents, Laura Hobbs, said parts of the proposal could be revised to comply with existing law.
“The entirety of the petition is not illegal,” she said. “There are sections that are illegal, and there are sections that could possibly be tweaked to work within the existing law.”
Katske said, despite the loss, she’s fine with the results.
“Sometimes just making the noise, not necessarily getting what you want, but making enough noise for people to be aware of what's going on is more important than winning," she said.
Katske said she does not plan to challenge the measure if it passes, but expects others may do so, in part because of the attention this case has received.
Ballots are scheduled to be mailed to voters in late April. The case unfolded on a compressed timeline because final ballots must be sent to the printer by April 2.
