California sheriff running for governor seizes more than a half million
ballots from 2025 election
[March 23, 2026]
RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) — A California sheriff running for governor has
seized more than half a million ballots cast in a November special
election from county election officials, saying he's investigating a
ballot count discrepancy.
County elections officials have disputed the claims by Riverside County
Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican. California Attorney General Rob Bonta,
a Democrat, called Bianco's move unprecedented and says it is designed
to sow distrust in elections.
Bianco held a news conference Friday saying his office had launched the
investigation after receiving a complaint from a local citizens group
about the ballot count from a November 2025 special election on
redistricting.
In the special election, voters approved a measure to redraw
congressional district lines to favor Democrats in the upcoming midterm
election. The measure passed in the county by a margin of more than
80,000 votes.
Bianco seized ballots in Riverside County, the inland California county
of 2.5 million people where he has twice been elected sheriff. He called
the effort "a fact-finding mission."
“This investigation is simple: Physically count the ballots and compare
that result with the total votes reported,” he said Friday.
Bianco is one of two prominent Republicans running for governor in a
crowded June primary that includes more than half a dozen Democrats.
California runs a top-two primary system that puts all candidates on the
same ballot, regardless of party, and sends the two candidates who get
the most voters onto the November general election.
Leading California Democrats are worried that their party has so many
candidates, they risk splitting the vote and sending Bianco and Steve
Hilton, another top Republican, onto the general election. That would be
a stunning outcome in the heavily Democratic state.
Bianco said the investigation had “absolutely nothing to do” with his
campaign for governor.
“I have a duty to investigate alleged crime in Riverside County,” he
said.
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Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco speaks at a news conference in
Lake Elsinore, Calif., Feb. 7, 2023, as officials announced that the
closure of poppy fields at Walker Canyon until the wildflower bloom
subsides. (Watchara Phomicinda/The Orange County Register via AP,
File)
The effort 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.
Bonta has repeatedly sent letters to Bianco’s office over the last
two months saying his staff is not qualified to conduct a recount.
In one of the letters, Bonta wrote that the ballot seizure was
“unacceptable” and “sets a dangerous precedent and will only sow
distrust in our elections.”
The letters said Bianco seized nearly 1,000 boxes of ballots and
elections materials from the county's elections office with a
warrant in February. At issue, Bianco said, is a discrepancy a
citizen group reported between the handwritten ballot intake logs
and the number of votes reported to the state.
Bianco said the alleged discrepancy amounted to about 45,800 votes —
a difference elections officials have refuted at county meetings,
saying the machine count and the final count submitted to the state
differed by about 100 votes. They argue the handwritten rolls, which
were not relied on to check the count, were being kept by temporary
elections workers who had worked long days and may have made
mistakes.
Bianco said Friday that the count had started and stopped, but would
now resume under the supervision of a special master appointed by a
judge.
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