Riverside County Sheriff and California gubernatorial candidate Chad Bianco seized over 650,000 ballots from the November special election as part of a criminal investigation into possible vote-count issues.
The votes were related to Proposition 50, a measure that would temporarily redraw California’s districts to favor Democratic candidates. The seizure kicked off a fight between Bianco and California election officials.
The Los Angeles Times reported that Bianco announced the seizure during a Friday news conference. The story garnered attention because Bianco is not only the sheriff, but one of the highest-profile Republican candidates running in the governor’s race.
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a leading Republican candidate for governor, has seized more than 650,000 ballots from last November’s election to determine, he says, whether they were fraudulently counted.
“This investigation is simple: Physically count the ballots and compare that result with the total votes recorded,” Bianco said at a news conference Friday.
The unusual probe drew a sharp rebuke from California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, who said in a statement that it is “unprecedented in both scope and scale” and appears “not to be based on facts or evidence.”
Critics, meanwhile, said Bianco’s ballot seizure is a threat to democracy and another attempt by Republican election deniers to disenfranchise voters.
“There is no indication, anywhere in the United States, of widespread voter fraud,” Bonta said. “Counts, recounts, hand counts, audits, and court cases all support this.”
According to Bonta’s office, Bianco’s department on Feb. 26 seized about 1,000 boxes of ballot materials in Riverside County related to 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 claims he is acting on allegations that the county’s tally was inflated by more than 45,000 votes.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta wrote a letter to Bianco reminding him that he instructed him to “pause further action until my office has had an opportunity to review the factual and legal basis for your investigation.”
Bonta questioned whether “probable cause existed to support the issuance of the warrants” he used to justify the seizure.
Bianco justified his actions, saying that he has “a duty to investigate alleged crime in Riverside County” and characterized the move as a fact-finding mission rather than an attempt to relitigate the outcome of the election.
I will not be intimidated by the Attorney General. We will investigate any potential fraud. https://t.co/Aa3zPcbTEt
— Sheriff Chad Bianco (@ChadBianco) March 21, 2026
Proposition 50 redrew California’s congressional districts to favor Democrats in response to redistricting moves in red states, including Texas. The measure passed in Riverside County by over 80,000 votes. Statewide, it passed with 64 percent of the vote. Bianco insists the objective of his investigation is to ensure whether the reported count matched the physical ballots, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Riverside County election officials acknowledge a variance of only 103 votes, which amounts to 0.016 percent. They said the gap is due to human error and not voter fraud.
California Secretary of State Shirley Weber said, “The Riverside County Sheriff’s Office has taken actions based on allegations that lack credible evidence and risk undermining public confidence in our elections.”
She also pointed out that Bianco’s staff “are not elections officials, and they do not have expertise in election administration.”