Riverside, California — California Sheriff Running for governor He seized more than half a million ballots cast in the November special election from county elections officials, saying he was investigating a discrepancy in the vote count.
County elections officials disputed the claims of Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican. California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, called Bianco’s move unprecedented and said it was aimed at sowing distrust in the election.
Bianco held a news conference on Friday, saying his office began the investigation after receiving a complaint from a local citizens group about vote counting in the November 2025 special election. Redistricting.
In the special election, voters approved a measure to redraw congressional district lines to favor Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections. The measure passed in the county by more than 80,000 votes.
Bianco deliberately seized ballots in Riverside County, an inland California county with a population of 2.5 million, where he was elected twice. He described these efforts as a “fact-finding mission.”
“This investigation is simple: Physically count the ballots and compare that result to the reported vote totals,” he said Friday.
Bianco is one of two prominent Republicans running for governor in a crowded June primary that includes more than a half-dozen Democrats. California operates a primary system that places all candidates on the same ballot, regardless of party, and sends the two candidates who receive the most voters to the general election in November.
Leading california Democrats are worried Because their party has so many candidates, they risk splitting the vote and sending Bianco and Steve Helton, another top Republican, to the general election. This would be an astonishing result in a country with a Democratic majority.
Bianco said the investigation “has absolutely nothing to do” with his campaign for governor.
“It is my duty to investigate the alleged crime in Riverside County,” he said.
The efforts came as President Donald Trump repeatedly cast doubt on the results of the 2020 election, citing unconfirmed instances of fraud. Recently managed Confiscation of ballot papers and other documents From the Georgia Elections Office. Some Republicans have mirrored Trump’s rhetoric on voting in their states.
Bonta has sent repeated letters to Bianco’s office over the past two months saying his staff is not qualified to conduct the recount. In one letter, Bonta wrote that confiscating ballots was “unacceptable” and “sets a dangerous precedent and will only sow distrust in our elections.”
Bianco confiscated nearly 1,000 boxes of ballots and election materials from the county elections office under an arrest warrant in February, the letters said. The problem, Bianco said, is a discrepancy reported by a citizen group between handwritten ballot records and the state’s reported vote counts.
Bianco said the alleged discrepancy amounted to about 45,800 votes — a discrepancy that election officials refuted at county meetings, saying the automated count and final tally submitted to the state differed by about 100 votes. They say the handwritten lists, which were not relied upon to verify the count, were kept by temporary election workers who worked long days and may have made mistakes.
Bianco said on Friday that the counting process had begun and stopped, but would now resume under the supervision of a special master appointed by the judge.