Sacramento, California– California Republican Sheriff Who More than half a million ballot papers for the 2025 elections were confiscated He said he had halted the investigation into allegations of election fraud, citing an increase Legal challenges From the state attorney general and voting rights group.
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco is also one of two notable Republican candidates for governor The state said in a statement on Saturday that his office halted the investigation “due to politically motivated lawsuits and court filings.”
The reversal comes after Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta and the University of California Voting Rights Project launched legal challenges last week, arguing that the sheriff had no authority over election materials.
Bianco previously said the investigation — and the seizure of more than 650,000 ballots in the November election — was legal and approved by a Riverside County judge. He doubled his efforts last week by taking more ballots from the county elections office after receiving orders from Bonta’s office to stop.
Bonta’s office said Monday that he would continue to file his petitions with the California Supreme Court and Supreme Court.
“Our focus is on what the sheriff does, not what he says,” a police spokesman said in a statement.
The UC Voting Rights Project, in a petition filed Monday on behalf of several Riverside County voters, is also asking the state Supreme Court to order Bianco to return ballots while the case is pending.
“Our election law is clear that ballots must remain in the custody of election officials, and the mayor has provided nothing that changes this basic rule,” Sonny Waknin, an attorney for the group, said in a statement.
The dispute began in February and escalated this month when Bianco seized 1,000 boxes of election materials to investigate a complaint from a local citizens group about the counting of votes from a polling station. November 2025 Special Redistricting Election. Local election officials told the county Board of Supervisors last month that the complaint was baseless. After Bonta Bianco ordered his investigation halted, the sheriff confiscated another 426 boxes of ballots last week.
The ballot investigation came as President Donald Trump repeatedly cast doubt on the results of the 2020 election, citing unconfirmed cases 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.