Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco’s seizure of more than 650,000 ballots as part of a criminal investigation into possible election malfeasance was unlawful, according to a California Supreme Court opinion issued Thursday, Sept. 24.
The court also found that California Attorney General Rob Bonta was within his rights under the state constitution to order the sheriff to halt the investigation and order Bianco to comply with Bonta’s directives.
In a unanimous decision in the Cervantes v. Bianco case, the high court’s seven justices said allowing law enforcement “unfettered access to ballots, or the ability to handle and count them in secret based on unregulated protocols, itself creates a substantial risk to election integrity.”
“This is not a case involving a few documents,” the opinion written by Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero reads. “It involves the unlawful removal and handling by armed deputies of over 1,000 boxes of documents and not just any documents, but the most precious documents of the citizenry in a democracy: their votes.”
The sheriff “violated his ministerial duty to carry out his law enforcement responsibilities in compliance with the robust protections for the handling of ballots set forth in the Elections Code,” which requires ballots to remain in the registrar’s custody, the ruling says.
In Bonta v. Bianco, the justices unanimously upheld Bonta’s constitutional authority over sheriffs.
The arguments by Bianco’s legal team “all boil down to the unsustainable view that the state’s chief law enforcement officer … nevertheless must remain a mere bystander to an unprecedented sheriff’s investigation of undeniable statewide significance,” reads the court’s opinion, also authored by Guerrero.
Bonta hailed the rulings in a Thursday morning news conference. “With today’s decision, sanity, common sense, and importantly the rule of law have prevailed,” he said.
“The Riverside County sheriff’s unprecedented seizure of more than 650,000 ballots was an unlawful attempt to undermine public confidence in our elections. He willfully defied my direct orders, misused criminal investigative tools and created a constitutional emergency in the process.”
Bianco did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a statement, Gov. Gavin Newsom said the ruling “affirms that in California we will defend democracy — using every branch of government … People deserve to know their ballot is counted and secure, and in California we will do everything we can to protect that constitutional right — this year, and beyond.”
Riverside Councilmember Clarissa Cervantes, one of a handful of Riverside County residents who sued Bianco with the help of the UCLA Votiing Rights Project, said in a statement: “The rule of law has been upheld, and your sacred ballot and vote are constitutionally protected from any outside political interference.”
Before the court were two cases. One, filed by Bonta, sought to halt Bianco’s probe. The other, filed by the voting rights project, demanded the sheriff return the confiscated ballots to the registrar.
The court ordered Bianco to return the ballots to the county elections office. The ballots remained in the sheriff’s custody as of Wednesday afternoon, Sept. 23, according to Elizabeth Florer, a Riverside County registrar’s spokesperson.
In April, the Supreme Court paused the investigation pending further legal review. Justices heard oral arguments in Bonta’s case and the UCLA case on Aug. 24.
Appearing before the court, lawyers seeking to halt the probe argued Bianco failed to follow proper procedures — asking the district attorney to convene a grand jury, for example — before seizing the ballots. The sheriff’s lawyers argued the state elections code, which governs the handling of ballots, should not stymie a legitimate law enforcement investigation.
Thursday’s rulings end a saga triggered by a complaint from the Riverside Election Integrity Team, a citizen’s watchdog group.
The group said it found a roughly 45,000-vote gap between the number of ballots cast and the number of ballots received by Riverside County in the November 2025 special election for Proposition 50, a successful statewide ballot measure — sparked by a nationwide redistricting fight — that redrew California’s congressional districts to favor Democrats.
Riverside County Registrar of Voters Art Tinoco said the group misread ballot data and that the actual gap was 103, well within the margin of error set by California’s secretary of state.
While voter fraud in the United States is not unheard of, experts say it’s very rare, easily detectable by safeguards and not close to the level needed to influence election results. Many who question election processes also support President Donald Trump, who falsely claims that fraud cost him the 2020 presidential election.
Nonetheless, sheriff’s investigators, who previously sought election records while investigating alleged voter fraud, obtained search warrants in February and March for more than 656,000 ballots cast by Riverside County voters in the Proposition 50 election.
At the time, Bianco, who unsuccessfully ran as a Republican in California’s June gubernatorial primary, said he wasn’t disputing the special election’s outcome, but wanted his investigators to count every ballot, to determine whether the 45,000-vote gap existed and if so, what caused it.
Bonta, Secretary of State Shirley Weber and voting rights advocates denounced the ballot seizure, which the attorney general called unprecedented in California history.
Critics said the sheriff’s investigation was baseless and could needlessly undermine public faith in elections. Bonta argued the warrants used to seize the ballots lacked probable cause — a key element of any search warrants — and Weber warned ballots could be irreversibly damaged if handled by untrained investigators.
Bianco rejected critics’concerns — his deputies knew how to count, he quipped — and said he had an obligation to investigate crimes in his county.
The dispute turned personal between Bianco and Bonta, a Democrat whose office is overseeing an ongoing civil rights probe involving conditions in Riverside County jails.
“He was deceitful, he was duplicitous. He willfully defied my instructions,” Bonta said Thursday, adding he went to court after Bianco refused to pause the investigation, share evidence and explain his rationale for the probe.
Bianco has said Bonta is an embarrassment to law enforcement.
“What does sow mistrust in our system is failing to conduct an investigation, or worse, attempting to stop or interfere with a lawful investigation, to sweep it under the rug so evidence can possibly be destroyed,” the sheriff said in March.
Democratic candidate for governor Xavier Becerra serves as a senior adviser for voting rights and is an attorney of record in the project’s lawsuit.
Cervantes, the Riverside council member and Democratic Assembly candidate who was one of the plaintiffs in the UCLA case, is the sister of state Sen. Sabrina Cervantes, D-Riverside. Sabrina Cervantes sponsored legislation signed by Newsom this year making it a crime to take marked ballots from elections officials.
“I applaud the California Supreme Court for standing on the side of voting rights, California voters, and our democracy,” the senator said in a news release.
“No one, including law enforcement officers, is above the law when it comes to safeguarding the integrity of elections in our Golden State.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.