Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco speaks at a news conference in Lake Elsinore, Calif., Feb. 7, 2023. (Watchara Phomicinda/The Orange County Register via AP, File)
A Republican sheriff running for governor of California has seized more than 650,000 ballots cast in last year’s redistricting referendum election, an alarming signal that the FBI’s recent conspiracy-fueled raid of a Georgia county election hub could be just the first in a new string of attacks on the results of past votes.
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco announced Friday that his office had seized the ballots and would conduct its own hand count after receiving complaints about an alleged discrepancy of 45,000 votes in the Proposition 50 special election. That vote allowed California Democrats to redraw the state’s congressional map to wipe out President Donald Trump’s gerrymandering gains in Texas.
In recent weeks, the FBI has taken custody of ballots in Fulton County, Georgia, and subpoenaed records from Maricopa County, Arizona. In both cases, the focus was the 2020 presidential race.
But like in those cases, there are signs that Bianco’s challenge to the Prop 50 vote is also based on wrong or downright false information.
In statements to the Riverside County Board of Supervisors last month, county registrar Art Tinoco said the actual discrepancy between ballots cast and ballots counted was just 103 votes — roughly 0.016% of ballots. And the claim of a 45,000-vote discrepancy? It was based on misinterpretations of unprocessed, raw data, he said.
Regardless, Bianco got hold of the ballots.
He said his office served the Riverside County Registrar of Voters’ office with a warrant Feb. 9 that was approved and signed by a judge. According to the sheriff, “the search warrants are all sealed,” and a Riverside superior court judge issued an order Thursday to appoint a special master to oversee counting the ballots.
“This investigation is simple: Physically count the ballots and compare that result with the total votes reported,” Bianco told reporters at a Friday press conference.
He also revealed that his office already attempted to begin counting ballots, but the count was halted and will restart under the supervision of the court.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) has harshly criticized the investigation.
In a March 4 letter published by the Los Angeles Times, Bonta blasted Bianco for failing to respond to his direction in a previous letter instructing the sheriff to pause any further action until the attorney general’s office had an opportunity to review the factual and legal basis for the investigation. Bonta wrote that he was “prepared to seek legal recourse in court” if Bianco did not confirm by March 5 that he was standing down the investigation.
“Based on our initial review of the Warrants and their associated affidavits, my office has serious concerns as to whether probable cause existed to support the issuance of the Warrants, and whether your office presented the magistrate with all material evidence as required by law,” the attorney general wrote.
Bonta also informed Bianco that it was “unacceptable” for the sheriff’s staff members to conduct a hand count of the ballots without training or experience.
Bianco shrugged off Bonta’s concerns that his officers are not qualified to count ballots.
“I cannot speak for him, or for [the] California DOJ, but I can assure you completely that my investigators definitely know how to count,” Bianco said Friday.
Riverside County stretches from the eastern reaches of Los Angeles to the Arizona border. With more than 2.4 million residents, it is the fourth-largest county in California. Prop 50 passed in the county with 56% of voters in favor.
As in other recent challenges to election results, Bianco’s investigation appears to be rooted in conspiracy theories pushed by election deniers.
Bianco said the complaints stem from a group of citizen volunteers who audited the 2025 election and allegedly discovered the 45,000-vote discrepancy between the county’s handwritten ballot logs and the total number of ballots that were reported and certified in the election. The sheriff said that the county registrar had responded to the allegations, explaining that the county did not rely on the handwritten logs and that the machine count did not reflect that large discrepancy.
Trump previously claimed the Proposition 50 vote was a “GIANT SCAM” that merited investigation.
“All ‘Mail-In’ Ballots, where the Republicans in that State are ‘Shut Out,’ is under very serious legal and criminal review,” the president wrote in social media posts on the day of the special election.
As of Friday, Bianco told reporters that his office had custody of all of the 2025 election records. He declined to say where his office was keeping the documents.
Bianco also said his office was still conducting an investigation into the county’s 2022 election and had found “isolated instances of ballot fraud.”
Even though his investigation into the Prop 50 election does not concern any federal races, the sheriff left the door open to potential federal involvement.
“It may be a situation where the federal government has jurisdiction over this,” Bianco said. “That remains to be seen. We don’t know what we’re going to find until we count those ballots.”
