{"id":239655,"date":"2026-03-27T19:25:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T19:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/239655\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T19:25:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T19:25:07","slug":"riverside-sheriff-seizes-more-ballots-defying-california-officials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/239655\/","title":{"rendered":"Riverside Sheriff seizes more ballots, defying California officials"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Riverside County sheriff, who is a leading Republican candidate for governor, this week seized even more ballots from last November\u2019s election, part of an escalating crusade<\/a> to look into unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud \u2014 much to the alarm<\/a> of state law enforcement officials and election integrity watchdogs. <\/p>\n

According to the new court filings, Sheriff Chad Bianco seized an additional 426 boxes of ballot materials from county elections officials on Tuesday, expanding the cache of election materials the sheriff plans to review in what he called a \u201cfact-finding mission\u201d to determine if votes were fraudulently counted. Last month, his department seized more than 650,000 ballots <\/a>cast in Riverside County in the November election for Proposition 50, which temporarily redrew the state\u2019s congressional districts to favor Democrats.<\/p>\n

The move pits Bianco at further odds with Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, who has called on the sheriff to halt the investigation, citing legal and ethical concerns, including how the probe \u201csets a dangerous precedent and will only sow distrust in our elections.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a new lawsuit related to the case, Bonta said the situation \u201cdemands immediate judicial intervention\u201d because Bianco has defied directives from his office \u2014 the state\u2019s top law enforcement agency \u2014 and proceeded with an investigation that hasn\u2019t properly identified \u201cany particular crime that may have been committed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without a court order pausing the investigation, \u201cthe sheriff\u2019s misguided investigation threatens to sow distrust and jeopardize public confidence in the upcoming primary and general elections, not just in Riverside County but around the state,\u201d the lawsuit said. <\/p>\n

Representatives for Bianco\u2019s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Neither did the Riverside County Sheriff\u2019s Department.<\/p>\n

Bianco has previously said that his department received warrants \u201capproved and signed by a judge\u201d to seize the elections materials. The warrants remain under seal. In an interview with The Times this week, he rejected criticism of his move.<\/a> <\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the very, very beginning, Chad Bianco didn\u2019t say this was political,\u201d Bianco said, referring to himself in the third person. \u201cChad Bianco said we have an allegation of fraud with numbers that don\u2019t add up, and no one has an exact reason why. So we have to find out the exact reason why. It\u2019s plain and simple. Plain and simple.\u201d<\/p>\n

Critics have been alarmed at his actions, saying it\u2019s part of a larger campaign by some on the right to erode trust in the election process.<\/a> <\/p>\n

The attorney general\u2019s new filing requested expedited ruling from the Riverside County Superior Court in order to \u201chalt the [sheriff\u2019s] brazen, ongoing violations of the Attorney General\u2019s orders, and prevent [sheriff] from further tampering with elections materials.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Thursday, the UCLA Voting Rights Project also filed a petition<\/a> requesting that the California Supreme Court require Bianco to return all seized ballots to the county\u2019s voter registrar office. The petition, filed on behalf of Riverside County voters, argues that all ballots must remain in the custody of the county Registrar of Voters under state law. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur election laws are clear: voter ballots are sacred and must be protected from tampering. Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco is supposed to enforce the law, not break it,\u201d former California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra, who is also running for governor and is the senior voting rights advisor for UCLA\u2019s Voting Rights Project, said in a statement. \u201cHis reckless seizure… and his attempt to oversee a recount not only violate California election law but are based on no credible evidence whatsoever. Law enforcement officials are legally prohibited from interfering in counting ballots, in California and nationwide.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bonta\u2019s office echoed those concerns earlier this week in a letter to a state appeals court, bringing up concerns that the vote-by-mail ballots seized by Bianco \u201ccontain confidential information, particularly voter signatures, and are strictly protected from disclosure by California law.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ballots in question are from the November election for Proposition 50<\/a>, which temporarily redrew the state\u2019s congressional districts to favor Democrats in response to partisan redistricting in Republican states, including Texas.<\/p>\n

Bianco, an outspoken Trump supporter, said his investigators are looking into allegations by a local citizens group that \u201cdid their own audit\u201d and found that the county\u2019s tally was falsely inflated by more than 45,000 votes \u2014 a claim that local election officials have rejected. He said that it\u2019s his constitutional duty to investigate a potential crime and that he is not trying to change the election results.<\/p>\n

Staff writer Hailey Branson-Potts contributed to this story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Riverside County sheriff, who is a leading Republican candidate for governor, this week seized even more ballots…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3149,107825,16854,7,9,8,4761,7735,6246,17495,107828,107829,348,10773,107826,107827,225,430],"class_list":{"0":"post-239655","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-attorney-general","9":"tag-ballot-material","10":"tag-bianco","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-california-headlines","13":"tag-california-news","14":"tag-congressional-district","15":"tag-court-order","16":"tag-department","17":"tag-election-law","18":"tag-election-material","19":"tag-ethical-concern","20":"tag-investigation","21":"tag-riverside-county-sheriff","22":"tag-riverside-sheriff","23":"tag-riverside-sheriff-chad-bianco","24":"tag-state","25":"tag-week"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}