RIVERSIDE, CA — The future of the fight over fraud allegations related to the Proposition 50 special election remained unclear on Thursday after the Riverside County Board of Supervisors declined to pay for outside counsel outside counsel to defend Sheriff Chad Bianco in four lawsuits.
On Tuesday, the supervisors voted 4-1 to allow Riverside County to foot the bill over lawsuits he's facing after seizing more than 650,000 ballots in Riverside County. Supervisor Karen Spiegel was the only dissenting vote.
On April 8, the California Supreme Court ordered Bianco to pause his probe into election fraud allegations while the judges review the legal challenge against it.
The order came after California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, last month asked the court to step in, arguing the sheriff has no authority over election materials. A voting rights group is also challenging the ballot seizure.
The dispute started earlier this year and escalated last month when Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco seized 1,000 boxes of election materials to investigate a complaint from a local citizens group about the ballot count from a November 2025 special election on redistricting. Local election officials told the county Board of Supervisors that the complaint was unfounded. After Bonta ordered Bianco to halt his probe, the sheriff seized another 426 boxes of ballots.
Last week, Bonta said the order is essential to stop the sheriff’s probe.
“What the Sheriff says and what he does are often two different things,” Bonta said in a statement. “Today’s decision by the California Supreme Court reins in the destabilizing actions of a rogue Sheriff, prohibiting him from continuing this investigation while our litigation continues.”
Bianco is also one of two prominent Republican gubernatorial candidates in the state, and currently leading against his rival Steve Hilton, according to a poll released on Thursday.
Bianco previously defended his investigation, noting it was approved by a county judge. The sheriff last week said he’s paused the probe because of mounting legal challenges.
The ballot investigation came as President Donald Trump has repeatedly disputed the results of the 2020 election, citing unsubstantiated instances of fraud. His administration recently seized ballots and other documents from an election office in Georgia. Some Republicans have mirrored Trump’s rhetoric on voting in their states.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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