Shasta County’s acting Registrar of Voters is going to ask the Board of Supervisors for $125,000 Tuesday to set up a prototype of how he would run local elections if he had a lot more money. Clint Curtiss wants maximum public surveillance of the process by way of 43 inch TVs that would be set up in an “observer’s lounge”, and would show the various processes taking place in the secured areas of the Elections Office. He also wants to spend $13,000 to livestream the tallying process. In his report, Curtiss warns that he’ll be unable to pre-test the ballots, so there may be a re occurrence of the Runbeck ballot overspray problem that turned last November’s election into a monumental headache. A special election is just over two months away to decide on a One Cent sales tax for Redding and approval of congressional redistricting maps.
-Steve Gibson