{"id":442299,"date":"2026-08-24T20:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T20:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/442299\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T20:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T20:48:09","slug":"california-supreme-court-hears-riverside-county-ballot-seizure-cases-orange-county-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/442299\/","title":{"rendered":"California Supreme Court hears Riverside County ballot seizure cases \u2013 Orange County Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

Attorneys demanding that Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco return the more than 650,000 ballots cast<\/a> in November that he seized argued before the California Supreme Court on Monday, Aug. 24, that the law was clear: Bianco should have used legal channels before serving warrants to obtain the ballots and begin a criminal investigation.<\/p>\n

Charles W. Dunn told the justices that election law required Bianco to ask District Attorney Mike Hestrin to impanel a grand jury to seek the ballots, or ask the county Board of Supervisors to order an investigation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn no event shall the ballots be taken from the custody of the registrar,\u201d Dunn said, citing the Election Code.<\/p>\n

Dunn added that were other sections of the Election Code \u201cthat were run roughshod over.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bianco\u2019s attorney, Bradley W. Hertz, argued that the sheriff acted properly.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere we have to read (the Code) in context. \u2026 It cannot be a universal prohibition against all legal processes,\u201d Hertz said.<\/p>\n

Such a strict reading of the Code, Hertz said, \u201cwould immunize from investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a second case heard Monday, attorneys argued how strictly a statute should be read that the California attorney general supervises county sheriffs and whether Bonta has the power to shut down an investigation such as one over the Proposition 50 ballots cast in a November special election.<\/p>\n

Justices did not rule nor say when they would.<\/p>\n

A majority of voters in the county and state approved the ballot measure<\/a>, which redrew California\u2019s congressional districts to help Democrats win more seats in the upcoming midterm elections.<\/p>\n

The Riverside Election Integrity Team, a citizen\u2019s watchdog group, said it uncovered a roughly 45,000-vote gap<\/a> between the number of Proposition 50 ballots received by Riverside County and the number of ballots cast in the election.<\/p>\n

County Registrar of Voters Art Tinoco has said the actual gap is much smaller \u2014 just 103 votes \u2014 and falls well within the acceptable margin of error set by California\u2019s Secretary of State, which oversees elections.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, Riverside County sheriff\u2019s investigators in February and March obtained search warrants to seize Proposition 50 ballots cast in the county. At the time, Bianco \u2014 then a Republican candidate for governor<\/a> \u2014 said his team would hand count every ballot to determine if the alleged 45,000-vote gap existed, what caused it and if the cause involved a crime.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Search warrant applications<\/a> show Bianco\u2019s department had a running interest in elections, having secured other warrants in 2023 and 2024 for voter data. The warrants taken out this year show sheriff\u2019s investigators in frequent contact with the head of the Riverside Election Integrity Team and others who question the integrity of the county\u2019s vote-counting process.<\/p>\n

While voter fraud in the United States is not unheard of, experts say it\u2019s very rare<\/a>, 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<\/a>, who falsely claims that fraud cost him the 2020 presidential election.<\/p>\n

This spring\u2019s ballot seizure triggered a pushback by critics who argued Bianco\u2019s probe was baseless, compromised the ballots\u2019 integrity and threatened to undermine the public\u2019s faith in elections.<\/p>\n

Bonta sued to stop the probe<\/a>, arguing among other things that Bianco ignored his lawful directives. Bianco\u2019s legal team countered that Bonta has no authority to stop California sheriffs from looking into possible criminal wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

The dispute has political overtones, with Bonta, a Democrat, accusing Bianco of acting recklessly. Bianco, who plans to run for reelection as sheriff in 2028<\/a>, blasted Bonta as \u201can embarrassment to law enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n

In April, the Supreme Court paused the investigation pending further legal review<\/a>, including a look at what authority the attorney general has over sheriffs and whether Bonta is entitled to a court order blocking Bianco\u2019s investigation.<\/p>\n

The other case involves a lawsuit brought by the UCLA Voting Rights Project \u2014 Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra is an adviser \u2014 on behalf of four plaintiffs, including Democratic Assembly hopeful and Riverside City Councilmember Clarissa Cervantes.<\/p>\n

That lawsuit argued that the seized 650,000 or so ballots should not have been taken from the registrar.\u00a0 In May, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law<\/a> making it illegal to take marked ballots from election officials.<\/p>\n

The law\u2019s sponsor? Cervantes\u2019 sister, state Sen. Sabrina Cervantes, D-Riverside.<\/p>\n

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Attorneys demanding that Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco return the more than 650,000 ballots cast in November that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":442300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,400,28687,989,100,13,612],"class_list":["post-442299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-california-politics","tag-chad-bianco","tag-elections","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-riverside-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442299","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=442299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/442300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}