California attorney general sues to stop Riverside County sheriff from seizing ballots

Lia Russell, The Sacramento Bee on Mar 24, 2026

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued to stop Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco from seizing more than 600,000 ballots in the 2025 statewide special election after the Republican sheriff claimed voter fraud.

Bonta filed an emergency petition with the state 4th Court of Appeals on Monday to stop Bianco, a candidate in the 2026 governor’s race, after Bianco seized 657,322 ballots and accused Bonta of interfering in his office’s investigation into voter fraud.

“While we’ve attempted to work cooperatively with the Sheriff, he has flagrantly ignored our directives and recently obtained a warrant in direct defiance of our instructions,” Bonta’s office said in a statement. “The Riverside County Sheriff’s Office is not equipped nor legally authorized to play the role of elections monitor. By all appearances, this investigation is little more than a fishing expedition meant to sow distrust and undermine public confidence in our elections.”

In a news conference last week, Bianco said his office was investigating potential voter fraud after a group calling itself “the Riverside Election Integrity Team” said it had conducted its own vote count and found that there were 45,000 more ballots than local elections officials reported in the Nov. 4 race.

Riverside County elections officials denied this. Registrar of Voters Art Tinoco told the county Board of Supervisors in February that the group had relied on unverified data and not included provisional votes and other confidential voter records.

Bonta previously wrote to Bianco earlier this month, ordering him to cease investigating after the sheriff’s office seized 1,000 boxes of ballots and began to conduct “an amateur and dubious recount” of the final votes cast in the Proposition 50 election.

Voters overwhelmingly passed Prop. 50 in a landslide, and the courts have batted down challenges from the California GOP since then.

In response to his emergency petition, Bianco called Bonta an “embarassment to law enforcement” and called attention to his gubernatorial campaign, where he is one of two Republicans seeking to lock out Democrats in the race.

In an X video, Bianco called himself the state’s “next governor” and appeared to be wearing his sheriff’s uniform, which could violate laws against campaigning while in uniform.

He also echoed conspiracy theories about voter fraud, which have animated President Donald Trump’s base, as Trump and the Department of Justice have begun probing Democratic states for supposed voter fraud.

“Why in the world would Rob Bonta want that count stopped, unless he was afraid of what that count would uncover?” Bianco said. “Stay tuned.”

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