CA Supreme Court Orders RivCo Sheriff To Return Seized Ballots

RIVERSIDE, CA — The state Supreme Court ruled against Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco on Thursday saying the sheriff did not have the legal right to seize 650,000 ballots as part of an investigation into alleged election fraud, and ordered the ballots be returned to the registrar.

The unanimous ruling comes after Bianco, who was running for California Governor at the time, launched a probe into alleged fraud during the special election for Proposition 50 in November 2025. Proposition 50 allowed the state to use a new congressional district map for 2026 through 2030.

Opponents of Proposition 50 argued the measure to redraw the state' s congressional districts was unfair and favored Democrats. The measure was passed overwhelmingly by 64.4 percent of California voters.

Investigators obtained three search warrants from a county judge, leading to the seizure of roughly 1,000 boxes of vote-by-mail ballots cast countywide.

RELATED: RivCo Supervisors Decline To Pay Sheriff Bianco's Legal Fees In Election Probe

"(The state Constitution) unambiguously confers upon the attorney general the authority to issue binding directions to sheriffs regarding a criminal investigation, at least when these directions are consistent with the attorney general's responsibility to `see that the laws of the state are uniformly and adequately enforced,"' the justices said in a unanimous opinion Thursday.

"While there are undoubtedly limits to the powers vested in the attorney general under the state Constitution and Government Code, the orders before us do not test these boundaries, and no valid reason appears why the attorney general cannot exercise his authority here to issue binding directions consistent with the uniform and adequate enforcement of the law," the opinion stated.

Bianco put detectives on the case after a civic watchdog group, Riverside Election Integrity Team, claimed it had uncovered discrepancies in the official ballot count. REIT said it found a difference of 45,896 ballots between what the Office of the Registrar of Voters stated had been cast, compared to what was actually counted — 611,426 versus 657,322, according to court documents.

"There is no acceptable error, small or large, in our elections, let alone a 45,000-vote difference," Bianco said in March.

Bonta directed the sheriff to halt the investigation and return all of the seized ballots, saying the sheriff was trampling on constitutional processes, and that any investigation into possible election corruption should be handled at the top. Bianco agreed to pause the investigation but publicly challenged the attorney general's authority to interpose in a county-level probe, culminating in the AG's lawsuit, as well as an analogous suit by state Sen. Sabrina Cervantes, D-Riverside.

RELATED: CA Supreme Court Orders RivCo Sheriff To Pause Election Investigation

"Today's rulings bring important clarity for our constitutional system in California," Bonta said. "I'm grateful that our state Supreme Court reaffirmed my authority as attorney general to supervise county sheriffs. I take my responsibility to exercise that authority in the public interest seriously."

Bonta said he recognized that "election fraud can and should be investigated."

"But misuse of criminal investigative tools — without any evidence that a crime was committed — needlessly undermines trust in our elections system and in law enforcement," he said. "After the sheriff took the extraordinary step of obtaining warrants to seize control over voted ballots, I made a modest request to him: pause your investigation, preserve all evidence and provide the information needed for my office to review the allegations. Instead, Sheriff Bianco pressed forward with the seizure of hundreds of thousands of ballots. The court has now made clear that this kind of defiance cannot stand."

Bianco did not immediately respond to the court's decision, which Gov. Gavin Newsom said "affirms that in California we will defend democracy."

RELATED: Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco Fails To Get Key Endorsement From CA GOP

"The new laws I signed last week add additional protections so attacks like this cannot happen again," Newsom said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

"People deserve to know their ballot is counted and secure, and in California, we will do everything we can to protect that constitutional right," he said, adding that his signature this week on a 13-bill package touted as a collective to strengthen election integrity should reinforce confidence in the voting process.

In March, Bianco expressed bewilderment over Bonta's aggressive steps to spike the election probe, saying he couldn't understand why the attorney general "would want (the review of ballots) stopped, unless he was afraid of what the count would uncover."

Bianco's attorneys argued before the Supreme Court that Bonta, in fact, was not empowered to dictate to an elected sheriff to stop carrying out an investigation, but rather only to supersede a sheriff's actions when there was evidence of "under-enforcement" of the laws. The defendants said such matters were recognized by the legal precedent of "substantial authority."

The justices found the argument inapplicable. They turned to the plain language of Article 5, Section 13 of the state Constitution, going back to voter-approved measures in 1934. The relevant provisions says the attorney general "shall be the chief law officer of the state."

"The attorney general shall have direct supervision over every district attorney and sheriff and over such other law enforcement officers as may be designated by law, in all matters pertaining to the duties of their respective offices," according to the provision.

The issue over the disconnect in the ballot count was never entirely resolved, although county Registrar of Voters Art Tinoco attempted to explain potential reasons for the discrepancies during an appearance before the Board of Supervisors last February.

He informed the board "that the handwritten records that REIT's calculations relied upon were prone to human error and did not account for certain kinds of ballots," according to the court's opinion.

Nothing more was said of the matter in the decision.

City News Service contributed to this report.