Measure B, also titled, “Local election transparency and security reform,” proposes several changes to how Shasta County’s elections are conducted. It would require that elections take place in one day, ballots be hand counted by volunteers and voters would have to provide photo ID to vote. It would also severely restrict voting-by-mail.
The proposed charter amendment was brought forward by Laura Hobbs, Rich Gallardo and other county residents involved in local politics for years. Gallardo said he’s too busy to be interviewed for this story, and Hobbs did not respond to multiple requests.
In a March interview with JPR, Hobbs said this measure is intended to restore trust in the elections.
“The Constitution guarantees a representative form of government,” she said. “And if you do not know that the people that you elected are rightfully in office and that the election was fair and honest, then the very foundation of our government crumbles.”
But there’s one problem: a lot of what’s proposed appears to violate state and federal laws. One example is hand counting. In 2023, county supervisors’ efforts gained national attention over a similar issue. They voted to scrap the county’s existing voting machines and attempted to hand-count future elections.
Shortly after, State lawmakers passed a bill outlawing the practice, specifically targeting Shasta County. Research has found that hand-counting ballots is more time-consuming, more expensive and less accurate than machine counting.
A plan by the previous county clerk estimated a full hand count of an election would cost around $1.6 million and require 1,300 additional staff members.
Another attempt
Now activists are again pushing to change elections in Shasta County. But their efforts face some opposition.
“It's going to disenfranchise voters,” said Cork McGowan, a Redding resident who wrote the opposition statement for Measure B. “Particularly in a rural county like Shasta, some people have to drive quite a distance to be able to vote, and to do that on one day is unfair and very unreasonable.”
McGowan said he’s not part of any group. He just saw there was no organized opposition to the measure and stepped up.
“I have a regular Monday morning breakfast with a bunch of friends,” he said. “And we all were talking about it, and somebody said, ‘Hey, well, we ought to write a rebuttal.’ And nobody else did. And so I just decided to do it.”
McGowan argued that Measure B is illegal. If it passes, it would likely face legal challenges almost immediately. In fact, it’s already faced one.
Redding Resident Jennifer Katske filed a lawsuit seeking to keep the measure off the ballot. But a judge allowed it to proceed, saying that pulling a ballot measure before an election is rare.
The California Secretary of State’s office declined to comment on the measure, including whether it was planning a lawsuit.
Supporters of the measure say that if it passes, they hope to keep the parts that are legal or tweak the measure to fit existing law.
Alexander Haberbush, who represented the measure’s proponents during the lawsuit, said that for example, the voter identification portion of the measure could be implemented by asking voters to present their ID but not require it if they declined to do so.
The current head of elections in Shasta County, Clint Curtis said he would prefer to hand-count ballots if it were allowed. He said that he could implement parts of Measure B, but the rest would have to be fought over in court.
“I can make some of it work,” Curtis said. “I don't know if I can make all of it work. We can't institute a voter ID in Redding or in Shasta, if we haven't done it anywhere else.”
None of the county supervisors openly supports the measure. Supervisor Chris Kelstrom said he warned proponents that it wouldn't work.
“Measure B is just a wish list,” he said. “All it's going to do is get us sued. I've said it from day number one.”
Kelstrom said he supports the ideas behind the proposal, but not the approach. He’s backing a similar statewide effort on the November ballot. The initiative brought forward by Republican Assemblymember Carl DeMaio would change the state constitution to require photo ID for voting in-person or by mail.
If Measure B fails, Shasta County voters will be able to weigh in on at least one of the proposed changes in November.
Ballots will be sent out to voters by May 4th. They must be postmarked or returned to a drop box by 8 p.m. June 2. Voters may also cast ballots in person at their local precinct or the elections office on Election Day. The elections office recommends bringing in your vote-by-mail ballot to the polling place so it can be canceled and an in-person ballot issued.
