Instead, the evidence they showed Judge Jay Kiel were claims from a group that one independent elections expert described as the equivalent of \u201cflat earthers\u201d alleging possible voter fraud. The county\u2019s top elections official says their claims of miscounted ballots are based on flawed and incomplete data.<\/p>\n
Kiel, whom Bianco endorsed<\/a> when he was running for the bench, signed the search warrants anyway, allowing the sheriff to take the highly unusual step of seizing 650,000 ballots from California\u2019s 2025 election amid his own campaign for governor<\/a>.<\/p>\n Until this week, the warrants were secret with Bianco, a Republican, contending they reflected \u201cnormal law enforcement\u201d and Kiel keeping them under seal.<\/p>\n That changed Wednesday when a different Riverside County judge and the California Supreme Court ordered them opened after CalMatters and other news organizations<\/a> petitioned for their disclosure.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n After reviewing the documents, experts had mixed opinions on whether Bianco\u2019s investigators\u00a0 had enough evidence of probable cause to justify the raid. Some said the lack of evidence in the investigators\u2019 affidavits raises troubling questions about how easy it was for Bianco to seize the ballots with the appearance of judicial oversight.<\/p>\n Bianco said he didn\u2019t care what independent experts had to say about his investigators\u2019 warrants, and he blamed the media and California Attorney General Rob Bonta for trying to politicize the sheriff\u2019s investigation.<\/p>\n \u201cWe took the information to a judge, and the judge agreed; it\u2019s really as simple as that,\u201d he said. \u201cWhy not just get to the bottom of it and see what the difference in the numbers were?\u201d<\/p>\n Cristine Soto DeBerry, a former prosecutor who heads the nonprofit Prosecutors Alliance Action, said she was troubled by how much the sheriff relied on an activist group\u2019s claims without trying to first verify them before obtaining the warrants.<\/p>\n \u201cThis entire course of conduct concerns me,\u201d said Soto DeBerry, whose group advocates for criminal justice reform. \u201cElections are a sacred institution in this country. We have not seen sheriffs seizing ballots in this country until 2026 and it is being done in a very casual, procedural manner instead of with the kind of care that I\u2019d expect we would use around something so important. And I think that applies to everybody who was involved here.\u201d<\/p>\n Carl Luna, director of the Institute for Civil Civic Engagement at the University of San Diego, criticized the citizens\u2019 group that deputies cited in the warrants and questioned Bianco\u2019s integrity.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey are the political equivalent of flat earthers who refuse to look at any facts that do not support their unsupportable views,\u201d said Luna in an email to CalMatters. \u201cThe fact that Sheriff Bianco, an elected representative of the people of Riverside County, is using this group\u2019s baseless allegations of fraud as what amounts to a campaign stunt is \u2026 evidence to question his fitness to lead the state.\u201d<\/p>\n Just the right amount of news<\/p>\n Just the right amount of news<\/p>\n Get California\u2019s most essential headlines without feeling overwhelmed.<\/p>\n Get California\u2019s most essential headlines without feeling overwhelmed.<\/p>\n But Paul Pfingst, a former San Diego County district attorney and the former president of the California District Attorneys Association, said he thought the information presented in the affidavits was enough to meet probable cause.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think it exceeds it by a lot,\u201d he said, pointing to the court paperwork, which says the county registrar of voters had not answered questions from an activist.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIn the absence of an explanation by the registrar of voters,\u201d said Pfingst, \u201cand unless someone can explain how \u2026 such a large discrepancy could occur, it is reasonable for law enforcement to determine whether the discrepancy is the result of electoral fraud or ballot fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n Pfingst said it wasn\u2019t necessary for investigators from the sheriff\u2019s department to get an explanation from county election officials before seeking the warrants.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Art Tinoco, the county\u2019s registrar of voters, publicly rejected the activist group\u2019s claims. He told county supervisors on Feb. 10 \u2013 before Kiel signed the last two of the warrants \u2013 that the activist group making the allegations didn\u2019t understand the data they were looking through.<\/p>\n \u201cDid the Nov. 4, 2025, statewide special election have a 45,896-ballot discrepancy between ballots cast and ballots counted?\u201d Tinoco told the supervisors, according to the Riverside Press Enterprise<\/a>. \u201cThe answer to that is no.\u201d<\/p>\n CalMatters requested an interview with Tinoco on Thursday. County Chief Executive Officer Jeff Van Wagenen responded with a statement saying that no county officials would comment due to the pending litigation.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for Riverside County Superior Court said Kiel couldn\u2019t comment due to rules prohibiting judges from discussing pending cases.<\/p>\n Court halted Bianco\u2019s investigation<\/p>\n The search warrants were unsealed on Wednesday, the same day that the California Supreme Court halted Bianco\u2019s ballot investigation, which he previously characterized as a \u201cfact-finding mission\u201d intended \u201cjust as much to prove the election is accurate as it is to show otherwise.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n That ruling was in response to legal challenges from Bonta and UCLA Voting Rights Project contesting the seizure and recount.\u00a0<\/p>\n In lawsuits, Bonta argued that Bianco failed to show that probable cause or evidence of a crime existed \u2014 a step that\u2019s required to obtain a search warrant. He called it an attempt to undermine public confidence in elections.<\/p>\n Bonta\u2019s office responded to an interview request Thursday with an emailed statement saying the office is working to \u201cprevent the misuse of criminal investigative tools for partisan fishing expeditions.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOur focus is on the sheriff\u2019s responsibilities under the law \u2014 to provide sufficient evidence of probable cause in obtaining criminal search warrants, to allow (the) Riverside (registrar of voters) to retain physical custody of the ballots as required by the elections code, and to follow the Attorney General\u2019s lawful directives, all of which he failed to do,\u201d the email read.<\/p>\n Claims from outside group <\/p>\n The newly released records show that the Riverside County Sheriff\u2019s Department was in contact with a citizens\u2019 group that believed they found possible voter fraud after surfacing a roughly 46,000-vote discrepancy between the number of ballots cast versus the number ballots certified, according to Riverside County Sheriff Department investigator Robert Castellanos in a sworn affidavit.<\/p>\n The last of the three warrants Kiel signed was filed on March 19, roughly three weeks after the state Justice Department ordered the Riverside County Sheriff Department to pause its work and share any information that could substantiate its concerns. By that point, the sheriff\u2019s department had already recounted 12,561 ballots, according to Castellanos\u2019s affidavit.<\/p>\n Castellanos\u2019s affidavits do not have a signature from a prosecutor at the Riverside County District Attorney\u2019s Office, suggesting prosecutors may not have reviewed the sheriff\u2019s office warrant requests. It\u2019s a common practice in California for a deputy district attorney to review local law enforcement search warrants to ensure investigators are on sound legal footing before presenting their evidence to a judge. The DA\u2019s office didn\u2019t return a message from CalMatters Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n In an interview, Greg Langworthy said he wasn\u2019t a conspiracy theorist and insisted his group, which calls itself the Riverside County Election Integrity Team, found enough evidence of vote-count discrepancies to warrant further investigation based on the registrar of voters\u2019 own records.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no doubt that there is a discrepancy, and that\u2019s supported by his own records,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s why we say the sheriff is duty bound to investigate. I think all of them are duty bound to investigate.\u201d<\/p>\n Allegations of voter fraud in Trump era<\/p>\n Groups like Langworthy\u2019s are increasingly common, as President Donald Trump<\/a> and his Make America Great Again movement spread unfounded allegations of rampant voter fraud.<\/p>\n Across the country, there\u2019s been \u201can increasing appetite for seizing materials for the sake of simply seizing materials,\u201d said Stephen Richer, the Republican former elected recorder of Maricopa County, Arizona. Richer was running his county\u2019s elections office in 2020, when Trump falsely accused him of overseeing a \u201crigged election,<\/a>\u201d leading to death threats.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI have a lot of experience with independent election fraud hunters and they almost universally have no experience in election administration,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it\u2019s also important when ethically and responsibly submitting an affidavit for probable cause that you assess the credibility of the witnesses.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Leonard Moty, a former Redding police chief and Republican supervisor in Shasta County where similar allegations of election impropriety have become common<\/a>, described the warrants as \u201cpretty light\u201d after reviewing them at CalMatters\u2019 request.\u00a0<\/p>\n He said he would have liked to have seen a more specific allegation with supporting evidence in the warrant before taking the matter to a judge.<\/p>\n Instead, the warrants focused on allegations from activists.<\/p>\n \u201cStatements don\u2019t really mean much, particularly with this issue where on both sides people are saying what they want to say,\u201d Moty said. \u201cI would have wanted to see some actual evidence of votes not being counted.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775799373_809_Asset-4.png\")
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