Curtis’s Congressional Bids—and the “Fraud” Through-Line

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The record: multiple runs, zero wins

• Florida’s 24th District (2006): Curtis, the Democratic nominee, lost to Republican incumbent Tom Feeney by 33,932 votes (123,795–89,863). Afterward, Curtis formally contested the result in both state court and the U.S. House, alleging that electronic voting machines produced unreliable, manipulated tallies. The House Committee on Administration dismissed his contest, calling his claims “speculation and conjecture.” (House Report 110-176 documents the vote totals, his contest, and the dismissal.) (U.S. House of Representatives, 2007).
   
• California’s 4th District (2010): Curtis relocated and ran as the Democratic nominee against Rep. Tom McClintock. He lost decisively (McClintock 61.3% to Curtis 31.4%). (Ballotpedia, 2010 results page).
   
• Florida’s 6th District (2020): Curtis returned to Florida politics and again lost—this time to Rep. Michael Waltz—by a large margin (60.6% to 39.4%). (Ballotpedia, 2020 results page; FEC candidate file; Harper, 2020).
   

Bottom line: In each documented congressional race above, Curtis did not prevail.
 

The pattern after losses: defaulting to fraud narratives

• 2006—Concrete example of post-loss fraud claims: In his official Notice of Contest to the U.S. House, Curtis alleged that DRE and optical-scan machines were biased or hacked, and that missing paper trails blocked a real count. The House report notes he “failed to make a credible and specific claim” that would alter the outcome and dismissed the case (U.S. House of Representatives, 2007).
   
• Longstanding claims about machine manipulation (before and after races): Years before and long after his campaigns, Curtis promoted allegations that election software could flip votes—claims widely publicized during the 2004–2005 period and scrutinized by mainstream outlets; contemporaneous reporting highlighted inconsistencies and disputes from other witnesses and officials (Zetter, 2004; Morgan, 2005).
   
• Contemporary posture in California: As Shasta County’s elections chief (appointed 2025), Curtis continues to cast doubt on election systems and to suggest underlying software issues (“get me the source code”). Local and national coverage repeatedly describes him as an election skeptic whose assertions lack verifiable proof; he proposes sweeping—and costly—changes premised on distrust of machines (Pierce, 2025a; Pierce, 2025b; Anguiano, 2025; Sosa, 2025a; 2025b).
   

Assessment

The clearest post-defeat fraud allegation tied to Curtis’s own races is 2006, when he filed formal contests alleging machine-based irregularities; Congress rejected those claims for lack of evidence (U.S. House of Representatives, 2007). In 2010 (CA-04) and 2020 (FL-06), the public record shows decisive losses; while Curtis has broadly advanced machine-fraud narratives in media and public appearances before and after those campaigns, there is no comparable, formal post-loss contest on record for those two races.

Taken together—his 2006 contest, his multi-year advocacy asserting undetectable machine hacks, and his recent rhetoric as a California election official—support the critical conclusion that when outcomes do not align with his expectations, Curtis tends to attribute results to systemic election fraud rather than candidate performance or district partisanship (Zetter, 2004; Morgan, 2005; U.S. House of Representatives, 2007; Ballotpedia, n.d.-a, n.d.-b;  Anguiano, 2025); Sosa, 2025a).