Tina Peters, who served prison time for tampering with voting machines on behalf of the MAGA movement, has declined a job offer helping to oversee elections in a conservative Northern California county.
“She declined the offer because she’s running around the country right now trying to secure the elections,” Clint Curtis, the Shasta County registrar of voters, said in an interview Tuesday. “Shasta County lost out.”
Last month, Curtis set off alarm bells across California by telling reporters he planned to hire Peters, a former county clerk in Colorado who was released early from prison this summer amid a pressure campaign by President Trump.
Curtis, himself a longtime election denier, told The Times he had planned to hire Peters as a consultant “to assist with supervision of the November election.”
Peters’ attorney, Peter Ticktin, said in an interview Tuesday that she had given serious consideration to the job offer but that he had not discussed it with her in recent days. It would “not have been a full-time position,” because she is so busy, he said.
“There’s far more for her to do than get tied up in one county,” Ticktin said. “At this point, she is an American icon. I mean, think about it: How many people meet with the president of the United States in the Oval Office?”
In California, talk of hiring Peters drew swift condemnation from Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democratic lawmakers who vowed to fight her employment.
On Monday, Newsom wrote in a sarcastic post on X: “A convicted MAGA election tamperer working in an elections office. What could possibly go wrong?”
He added, in all caps: “TINA, NOT IN CALIFORNIA! ELECTION DENIER FELONS NOT WELCOME HERE!!!”
In a separate social media post, the governor’s press office called the job offer “a disgrace” and said Newsom had directed corrections officials to “make every effort” to reject transfer of her parole supervision into the state.
Peters is not supposed to leave Colorado without permission from her parole officer, although she did visit Trump at the White House.
Curtis called the governor “crazy” and said he was amused that Newsom — who has advocated for prison reform and rehabilitation for criminals — was focused on Peters’ felony conviction.
“California is kind of a second-chance state,” Curtis said. “Except for Tina Peters. No second chance for her in Shasta County.”
Peters, the former clerk in Mesa County, Colo., was convicted in 2024 and sentenced to nine years behind bars for breaching her county’s voting machines as part of a scheme to show that the 2020 election was rigged against Trump, a claim that has been repeatedly debunked in court.
She was found guilty of helping an associate of MAGA conspiracy theorist and MyPillow founder Mike Lindell gain unauthorized access to Mesa County’s Dominion election equipment in 2021 and make copies of its hard drive before and after a software upgrade.
After months of haranguing from Trump, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, commuted Peters’ sentence. She was released in June after serving less than a quarter of the nine years.
In interviews with right-wing media, Curtis said Peters essentially would do the job of assistant registrar but would be brought on as a consultant to get around the county’s slow hiring process.
Brent Turner, the Shasta County assistant registrar, said his job was not open because he had not quit. He told The Times on Tuesday that he was happy Peters had declined his boss’ offer.
“I’m glad that Gavin is paying attention,” said Turner, a Democrat from San Francisco and a longtime election reform activist who has pushed for non-proprietary open-source voting systems with software code that can be examined by anyone.
Curtis handpicked Turner as his assistant last year.
Last month, Curtis told the hosts of “Jefferson State of Mine,” a radio show by leaders of the State of Jefferson secession movement, that Turner “got sick on me” and that he was hoping his assistant would “just, like, retire on June 2 and go away and let me fill [the position], but he didn’t.”
Turner, who is on medical leave, said he had not given Curtis permission to speak publicly about his health and that he had not spoken to his boss since Curtis began talking about hiring Peters.
“It’s been aggravating and unfortunate,” Turner said. “But we’re undaunted, as election officials and workers. And the fact is, there’s work to be done now, so the sooner we put this behind us, the better.”
Curtis was appointed by the Shasta County Board of Supervisors last year after two previous registrars resigned. He will be out of office in January after losing the June primary to Joanna Francescut, a longtime assistant registrar whom he had fired.
Curtis has sequestered primary ballots in a room in the elections office in Redding, sealing the doors with locks and duct tape and telling reporters that the ballots did not look, feelor smell right.
Both Curtis and county officials — who have condemned his actions — have asked the FBI and other authorities to investigate.
The post Convicted MAGA election denier declines job in California amid pressure from Newsom appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
