RIVERSIDE, California — A political and legal dispute is unfolding after Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco seized more than 500,000 ballots from a 2025 special election, citing an investigation into a reported vote-count discrepancy.
Bianco, a Republican candidate for governor, said the move is part of a “fact-finding mission” after a citizens group raised concerns about inconsistencies between handwritten ballot logs and official vote totals. He stated the goal is to physically recount ballots and compare them with reported results.
County election officials strongly dispute those claims, saying the discrepancy is minimal and likely due to clerical errors in handwritten logs. They maintain that certified results differ by only about 100 votes and that official machine counts were accurate.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta criticized the seizure as unprecedented and warned it could undermine public trust in elections. He has argued that the sheriff’s office lacks authority and expertise to conduct such a review and called the action “unacceptable.”
The ballots, totaling nearly 1,000 boxes, were taken under a court-approved warrant. A judge has since appointed a special master to oversee the review process as tensions grow over election integrity and political influence in the investigation.
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