The California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco acted unlawfully when his investigators seized more than 656,000 ballots cast in the November 2025 Proposition 50 special election, ordering him to comply with directives from Attorney General Rob Bonta and return the impounded materials to the county registrar. The decision addresses a legal standoff that began when sheriff's investigators obtained search warrants in February and March 2026 and hauled away roughly 1,000 boxes of ballots.
As reported by The Press-Enterprise, the court found that Bonta was within his constitutional rights to order Bianco to halt the investigation and that the sheriff must now comply with those directives. The ruling drew on the California Constitution, which the California Department of Justice says gives the attorney general supervisory authority over county sheriffs.
On Wednesday, September 23, the day before the ruling, the sheriff's office still held the seized ballots. The justices had already paused the investigation in April, and they heard oral arguments in the case in late August.
Two Cases, One Outcome
The high court actually ruled on two separate lawsuits tied to the same seizure. Bonta filed one case seeking to halt Bianco's investigation, accusing the sheriff of going rogue and ignoring lawful directives. The other, Cervantes v. Bianco, was brought by the UCLA Voting Rights Project on behalf of four local voters demanding the return of the confiscated ballots to the registrar, according to the League of Women Voters, which filed an amicus brief alongside Common Cause arguing that seizing marked ballots broke statutory custody rules and threatened voter privacy.
Riverside City Council member and Democratic Assembly candidate Clarissa Cervantes was among the plaintiffs in the UCLA case. Xavier Becerra served as a senior advisor for the UCLA Voting Rights Project and was listed as an attorney of record in that lawsuit. Bianco's lawyers had argued that the state elections code should not obstruct a legitimate law enforcement investigation, while lawyers seeking to halt the probe countered that Bianco failed to follow proper procedures before seizing the ballots.
Bianco Insists He Wasn't Disputing the Outcome
Bianco has said he was not disputing the special election's outcome, but wanted investigators to count every ballot to determine whether a roughly 45,000-vote gap existed and, if so, what caused it. That alleged discrepancy was reported by the Riverside Election Integrity Team, a local citizen group that identified the gap between ballots cast and ballots received in the November 2025 Proposition 50 election.
Riverside County Registrar of Voters Art Tinoco later said the actual gap was just 103 votes, according to The Washington Post. The California Secretary of State's office had already set a margin of error that included that 103-vote gap, meaning the discrepancy fell well within standard state certification tolerances rather than reflecting the tens of thousands of missing ballots the citizen group had alleged.
Bonta called the seizure unprecedented in California history and argued the warrants used lacked probable cause. Secretary of State Shirley Weber also denounced the seizure, warning that ballots could be irreversibly damaged by untrained investigators handling them. Voting rights advocates joined in condemning the sheriff's actions throughout the monthslong dispute.
Bianco, for his part, has said he had an obligation to investigate crimes in Riverside County and rejected critics' concerns about his investigation. He has also called Bonta an embarrassment to law enforcement, escalating a feud that played out against the backdrop of Bianco's unsuccessful run as a Republican candidate in California's June 2026 gubernatorial primary.
Political and Legislative Fallout
The dispute triggered a wave of state and local pushback well beyond the courtroom. Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 282, making unauthorized seizure of ballots or voting equipment a felony punishable by up to four years in prison, alongside Assembly Bill 1664, which requires immediate state notification whenever law enforcement demands election records, Hoodline previously reported on the new election laws. State Senator Sabrina Cervantes sponsored that ballot-protection legislation.
Locally, Supervisor Jose Medina referred Bianco's election investigation at a board meeting and raised concerns about possible misuse of resources, according to Rivco News. The scrutiny arrived alongside Bonta's separate, ongoing civil rights investigation into the Riverside County Sheriff's Department, which involves jail conditions.
Proposition 50 itself was approved by nearly 56% of Riverside County voters in the November 2025 special election, temporarily suspending the state's independent redistricting commission and producing Democratic-leaning congressional districts amid a nationwide redistricting fight, per Ballotpedia. The court directed Bianco to return the ballots to Tinoco's office.
