Power Grab/Fire anyone who can stop him
A federal grand-jury subpoena orders Shasta County’s registrar to bring more than 55,000 voted ballots from the June primary to Sacramento
It is the third federal move on physical ballots after Fulton County and Riverside, and the first aimed at a 2026 election.
What happened
A subpoena from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, sent September 10, 2026, ordered Shasta County Registrar Clint Curtis to appear before a federal grand jury on September 24 and produce more than 55,000 ballots and records from the June primary. It lists an FBI agent as point of contact.
The subpoena demands the voter identification envelopes, vote records and all voted, spoiled and unused ballots for “preservation, inspection, sampling, and production.” A California law passed in 2026, after federal agents took ballots in other states, bars removing ballots from the registrar’s custody.
Curtis, an election skeptic who lost his own race on that ballot, had asked federal officials to investigate ballots he said did not “look, feel or smell” right. Shasta County has been a center of election conspiracy politics since 2020, and its board of supervisors once voted to hand-count all ballots.
Who benefited
The Justice Department would gain physical access to a California county’s ballots through a grand jury, with the county’s own election chief as the willing witness. The hook is a local official’s claim.
Who wanted something
Curtis lost, and wanted the federal government to examine the ballots that beat him. The department has now moved on ballots in Georgia, California’s Riverside County and Shasta County. Each time the hook is a local official’s or activist’s claim.
Who lost out
Shasta’s voters have ballots and identifying envelopes that may leave the county against state law. California’s election system now has a federal grand jury inside a completed count, and the state’s new custody law faces its first test.
Why it matters
This is the first federal move on physical ballots aimed at a 2026 election, and the registrar himself invited it. Fulton and Riverside concerned earlier elections. The ballots that will be counted in November sit in the same offices.
Sources Shasta ScoutKQED