Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who is running to be the next California governor, has seized more than half a million ballots from a November 2025 special election on redistricting, triggering a political and legal confrontation with state officials.
Bianco obtained the ballots with a court-approved warrant in February as part of what he described as an investigation into an alleged discrepancy between ballot logs and official vote totals.
The dispute centers on Riverside County, an inland region east of Los Angeles with roughly 2.5 million residents, where Bianco has twice been elected sheriff.
“Investigations into irregularities must happen so that the public can have full confidence,” he said in a March 22 post on X.
Bianco announced the investigation at a press conference on March 20, saying it stemmed from a complaint by a local citizens group that reviewed public records from the county Registrar of Voters.
Bianco alleged that handwritten intake logs showed 611,428 ballots were received, while 657,322 votes were reported to the state—a gap of roughly 45,896 votes. He rejected the registrar’s explanation that official machine counts showed only a minor deviation attributable to human error.
Calling the probe a “fact-finding mission,” Bianco said investigators plan to physically count ballots and compare the total with certified results.
Clash With Attorney General
County election officials and California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, dispute Bianco’s claims and authority to conduct the probe.
Bonta has characterized the seizure as unprecedented. In letters sent to the sheriff’s office over the past two months, he wrote that the action was “unacceptable” and that it “sets a dangerous precedent and will only sow distrust in our elections.”
Bianco said Bonta sought to halt the probe, arguing that law enforcement officers are not authorized or trained to conduct election recounts. He noted that representatives of the attorney general had asked him to pause the investigation until after March 6 without providing a valid reason.
A judge later ordered that counting resume under the supervision of a special master appointed by the court, Bianco said.
He also suggested urgency because ballots from the 2025 election could be destroyed in May 2026 under state retention rules, although election officials did not comment publicly on that timeline.
Bianco cited a University of California–San Diego study that found that about 40 percent of Californians distrust election systems, calling the figure alarming.
“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,” he told the press conference.
Bianco is one of two prominent Republicans seeking California’s governorship in a crowded June primary that includes numerous Democrats.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
