Riverside sheriff seizes more ballots, defying California officials

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

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 has called a “fact-finding mission” to determine if votes were fraudulently counted. Last month, his department seized more than 650,000 ballots — from about 1,000 boxes — cast in Riverside County in the November election for Proposition 50, which temporarily redrew the state’s congressional districts to favor Democrats.

The move pits Bianco at further odds with California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, who has called on the sheriff to halt the investigation, citing legal and ethical concerns, including how the probe “sets a dangerous precedent and will only sow distrust in our elections.”

In a new lawsuit related to the case, Bonta said the situation “demands immediate judicial intervention” because Bianco has defied directives from his office — the state’s top law enforcement agency — and proceeded with an investigation that hasn’t properly identified “any particular crime that may have been committed.”

Without a court order pausing the investigation, “the sheriff’s 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,” the lawsuit said.

The attorney general’s new filing requested an expedited ruling from Riverside County Superior Court to “halt the [sheriff’s] brazen, ongoing violations of the Attorney General’s orders, and prevent [the sheriff] from further tampering with elections materials.”

In a statement Friday, Bianco defended his investigation and questioned the attorney general’s motives.

“The investigation simply sought to determine the validity of the allegations of election fraud,” Bianco said. “The attorney general’s office has taken massive steps, at taxpayers’ expense, to prevent a lawful investigation from occurring. The only question that should be asked is why anyone would not want an investigation to occur.”

Bianco has previously said that his department received warrants “approved and signed by a judge” to seize the elections materials. The warrants remain under seal, though the attorney general said he has reviewed them.

Critics and election watchdogs have also been alarmed at his actions, saying it’s part of a larger campaign by some on the right to erode trust in the election process. Voting rights advocates and Democrats say GOP arguments for a voting bill being pushed by President Trump, the SAVE Act, are part of that effort.

On Thursday, the UCLA Voting Rights Project also filed a petition requesting that the California Supreme Court require Bianco to return all seized ballots to the county’s 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.

“Our 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,” former California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra, who is also running for governor and is the senior voting rights advisor for UCLA’s Voting Rights Project, said in a statement. “His 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.”

Bonta’s 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 “contain confidential information, particularly voter signatures, and are strictly protected from disclosure by California law.”

The ballots in question are from the November election for Proposition 50, which temporarily redrew the state’s congressional districts to favor Democrats in response to partisan redistricting in Republican states, including Texas.

Bianco, an outspoken Trump supporter, said his investigators are looking into allegations by a local citizens group that “did their own audit” and found that the county’s tally was falsely inflated by more than 45,000 votes — a claim that local election officials have rejected. He said that it’s his constitutional duty to investigate a potential crime and that he is not trying to change the election results.

Times staff writer Hailey Branson-Potts contributed to this report.