California Faces Legal Battles Over Election Ballot Seizure
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — This week, California’s Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta and a voting rights organization initiated legal proceedings to stop the seizure and recount of over 500,000 ballots from the 2025 election. The ballots were taken by Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who is also a Republican gubernatorial candidate.
The situation in Riverside County has intensified since last month, with Bonta requesting judicial intervention while Bianco has continued to collect more ballots from local election offices. The attorney general’s office stated that an additional 426 boxes of election materials were taken recently.
Bianco defended his actions as a legal inquiry sanctioned by a judge, stating, “We are conducting a lawful investigation, approved by a judge.” He attributed Democratic opposition to political maneuvering.
On a separate front, the UCLA Voting Rights Project filed a petition with the state Supreme Court, arguing that the seizure breaches California’s election material laws.
Bianco, having initiated the investigation upon receiving a complaint from a local citizens group about the November 2025 special election on redistricting, labeled the effort a “fact-finding mission.” The sheriff, elected twice in Riverside County, a region with a population of 2.5 million, has seized approximately 650,000 ballots in total. Local election officials previously informed the county Board of Supervisors that the complaints were groundless.
Plans to manually count and verify the ballots against state-reported totals are underway, conducted by sheriff’s officials under the oversight of a court-appointed special master. No completion date for the counting process has been provided.
Bonta’s initial legal attempt to halt the recount was dismissed by an appeals court due to jurisdictional issues, prompting a refiling in a lower court. His petition warns of potential damage to public trust in the upcoming elections if the investigation is not promptly curtailed, stating, “Absent swift action by this Court, 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 sheriff, a known supporter of former President Donald Trump, claims his ballot seizure was backed by judge-issued warrants. Allegations of a discrepancy involving about 45,800 votes have been contested, with elections officials clarifying that the machine and final state-reported counts differed by merely 100 votes. They attribute potential errors to handwritten records maintained by temporary staff during extended work hours.
The UCLA Voting Rights Project seeks the return of the ballots to the county, asserting that law enforcement is prohibited from interfering in ballot counting. Former state attorney general Xavier Becerra, who is also running for governor, emphasized, “A candidate for Governor should know the law and lead by example, not weaponize his law enforcement office for political gain.”
This ballot investigation arises amidst ongoing claims by former President Trump of fraud in the 2020 election, with recent federal actions including the seizure of election documents in Georgia. These actions have been echoed by some Republicans adopting similar rhetoric in their states.
