California sheriff unlawfully seized ballots, state Supreme Court rules

The California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco violated the state’s election law by ordering his deputies to seize more than 650,000 ballots tied to the Proposition 50 special election. 

The justices ruled unanimously in two cases against Bianco, stating that he violated the law when he seized the ballots and also ignored directives from Attorney General Rob Bonta. 

The court ordered Bianco to cease his investigation into election fraud claims and return the ballots to county officials. The court also said he must “refrain from further handling of the ballots except as necessary to comply with our order.”

“In short, Bianco’s arguments fail to persuade us that we should interpret section 15551 in a manner inconsistent with its plain text, which mandates that voted ballots remain in the custody of elections officials,” the court wrote in its ruling. 

In an advertisement for his 2028 reelection campaign for Riverside County Sheriff, Bianco said the justices handed the Attorney General’s Office “unchecked power over any investigation in the state of California.”

“For that, the Court handed Bonta the power to pause a local criminal investigation and lock the evidence behind the Registrar,” Bianco wrote. “I will obey the writs. I will not obey the message behind them — that local law enforcement works for Sacramento, not for the people who elected us.”

Article V, Section 13 of the California Constitution, in part, states that the attorney general “shall be the chief law officer of the State” and sees that “the laws of the State are uniformly and adequately enforced.”

It also states: 

“The Attorney General shall have direct supervision over every district attorney and sheriff and over such other law enforcement officers as may be designated by law, in all matters pertaining to the duties of their respective offices, and may require any of said officers to make reports concerning the investigation, detection, prosecution, and punishment of crime in their respective jurisdictions as to the Attorney General may seem advisable.”

The court also ruled unanimously that Bianco ignored directives from Bonta when he was told to pause his investigation. 

“I’m grateful that our State Supreme Court reaffirmed my authority as Attorney General to supervise county sheriffs,” Bonta wrote in a statement. “I take my responsibility to exercise that authority in the public interest seriously. This was an extraordinary situation that required extraordinary action.”

In a video posted to social media, Bianco said the investigation “was never about the legality of the case,” but rather whether “the attorney general had the ability to stop a lawful investigation into a crime.”

He added that his office hoped that the California Supreme Court “would exercise basic common sense in their interpretation of our laws and our constitution.” 

“The framers of our constitution thought in terms of right versus wrong, good versus evil,” Bianco said. “At that time, never would anyone have thought that we would have an attorney general who would prevent the investigation into criminal activity and corruption.” 

When the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office seized the ballots earlier this year, Bianco, who lost his bid for California governor in the primaries, seized more than 611,000 ballots from the special election in which voters approved a redistricting measure that shifted five of California’s Republican U.S. House seats to be more favorable to Democrats in the midterm elections this year. 

Bianco claimed his agency was investigating a complaint from a local group alleging a possible discrepancy in which about 45,800 more votes were reported to California’s Secretary of State. He described the probe as a “fact-finding mission.” 

The investigation faced fierce backlash, including legal challenges from California Attorney General Rob Bonta, UCLA’s Voting Rights Project, whose lawsuit resulted in the court’s decision, and local leaders in Riverside who petitioned to have the ballots returned to the Registrar’s Office.

County elections officials also disputed Bianco’s claim, saying the machine count and the final count submitted to the state differed by about 100 votes. The Riverside County Registrar of Voters said it “will continue to comply with all lawful court orders and with all legal obligations applicable to election materials and election administration.”

After the filings, Bianco said in late March that he would pause his investigation “because of the politically motivated lawsuits and court filings” before the state Supreme Court ultimately issued a formal order to halt the probe in April. 

The ballots were confiscated and held in an undisclosed location during the case, according to Riverside City Councilmember Clarissa Cervantes, one of the local leaders who petitioned the court. 

Bianco echoed President Trump’s allegations of election fraud in the 2020 election during a podcast appearance on the Ben Maynard Program in October 2025. 

“We absolutely know there was fraud,” Bianco alleged, claiming that “mail-in ballots are purposely designed for fraud.”

He reiterated similar claims while the court heard oral arguments in August, claiming that the investigation was about “corruption in California.”

“My message to Bonta is simple: you may have succeeded in burying the truth—for now,” Bianco wrote following the decision. “But nothing stays hidden forever. In time, everything comes to light.”

Democratic gubernatorial candidate and former state attorney general Xavier Becerra is part of UCLA’s Voting Rights Project. 

Over the weekend, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a package of bills that would prevent anyone from seizing ballots. 

“Today’s ruling affirms that in California we will defend democracy — using every branch of government. And the new laws I signed just last week add new protections so attacks like this cannot happen again,” Newsom wrote in response to the rulings. “People deserve to know their ballot is counted and secure, and in California we will do everything we can to protect that constitutional right — this year, and beyond.”