Measure B is not what it claims to be. Rather than strengthening Shasta County’s elections, it would undermine the very way that 85% of Shasta County residents choose to vote – which is by mail.
If passed, Measure B would require that voting take place in person on a single day. Early voting would be eliminated and vote-by-mail would be drastically restricted.
According to the text of the measure, only “the infirm, military, and US citizens living overseas” would be able to vote absentee in the future. Will seniors, people with disabilities and those who are ill now need a doctor’s note to vote by mail? Who will decide who is infirm?
This restriction would directly affect over 85% of Shasta County voters, who currently cast their ballots by mail. That’s right, over 85% of us choose to vote by mail in Shasta County. For people who live in rural areas far from polling places, for working people who can’t take time off or are working outside the region on election day, for seniors and people with disabilities who can’t prove they are “infirm”, a mandatory single-day, in-person requirement isn’t a reform — it’s an obstacle to exercising a fundamental right.
Measure B also plainly violates state law and exposes county taxpayers to significant litigation costs — all in pursuit of a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.
Both the courts and the California legislature have already determined that only the state has the legal authority to establish voter ID laws. When Huntington Beach enacted its own local voter ID requirement in 2024, the lower courts declared it illegal and the California Supreme Court refused to review the case.
The state legislature then passed SB 1174, making clear that local governments cannot set their own local voter ID laws. Measure B runs headlong into that settled law.
Voting is a fundamental right.
We should be preserving options for eligible voters to cast their ballots – not erecting needless barriers that will infringe upon our right to vote in Shasta County.
Every eligible voter in Shasta County deserves meaningful access to the ballot. Measure B would take that access away.
Vote No on Measure B on June 2.
– Don Yost, Chair of the Shasta-Tehama-Trinity Chapter of the ACLU of Northern California.
