California Supreme Court hears Riverside County ballot seizure cases

Brian Rokos and Jeff Horseman, The Orange County Register on Aug 24, 2026

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Attorneys demanding that Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco return the more than 650,000 ballots cast in November that he seized argued before the California Supreme Court on Monday, Aug. 24, that the law was clear: Bianco should have used legal channels before serving warrants to obtain the ballots and begin a criminal investigation.

Charles W. Dunn told the justices that election law required Bianco to ask District Attorney Mike Hestrin to impanel a grand jury to seek the ballots, or ask the county Board of Supervisors to order an investigation.

“In no event shall the ballots be taken from the custody of the registrar,” Dunn said, citing the Election Code.

Dunn added that were other sections of the Election Code “that were run roughshod over.”

Bianco’s attorney, Bradley W. Hertz, argued that the sheriff acted properly.

“Here we have to read (the Code) in context. … It cannot be a universal prohibition against all legal processes,” Hertz said.

Such a strict reading of the Code, Hertz said, “would immunize from investigation.”

In a second case heard Monday, attorneys argued how strictly a statute should be read that the California attorney general supervises county sheriffs and whether AG Rob Bonta has the power to shut down an investigation such as one over the Proposition 50 ballots cast in a November special election.

Justices did not rule nor say when they would.

A majority of voters in the county and state approved the ballot measure, which redrew California’s congressional districts to help Democrats win more seats in the upcoming midterm elections.

The Riverside Election Integrity Team, a citizen’s watchdog group, said it uncovered a roughly 45,000-vote gap between the number of Proposition 50 ballots received by Riverside County and the number of ballots cast in the election.

County Registrar of Voters Art Tinoco has said the actual gap is much smaller — just 103 votes — and falls well within the acceptable margin of error set by California’s Secretary of State, which oversees elections.

Nonetheless, Riverside County sheriff’s investigators in February and March obtained search warrants to seize Proposition 50 ballots cast in the county. At the time, Bianco — then a Republican candidate for governor — said his team would hand count every ballot to determine if the alleged 45,000-vote gap existed, what caused it and if the cause involved a crime.

Search warrant applications show Bianco’s department had a running interest in elections, having secured other warrants in 2023 and 2024 for voter data. The warrants taken out this year show sheriff’s investigators in frequent contact with the head of the Riverside Election Integrity Team and others who question the integrity of the county’s vote-counting process.

While voter fraud in the United States is not unheard of, experts say it’s very rare, easily detectable by safeguards and not close to the level needed to influence election results. Many who question election processes also support President Donald Trump, who falsely claims that fraud cost him the 2020 presidential election.

This spring’s ballot seizure triggered a pushback by critics who argued Bianco’s probe was baseless, compromised the ballots’ integrity and threatened to undermine the public’s faith in elections.

Bonta sued to stop the probe, arguing among other things that Bianco ignored his lawful directives. Bianco’s legal team countered that Bonta has no authority to stop California sheriffs from looking into possible criminal wrongdoing.

The dispute has political overtones, with Bonta, a Democrat, accusing Bianco of acting recklessly. Bianco, who plans to run for reelection as sheriff in 2028, blasted Bonta as “an embarrassment to law enforcement.”

In April, the Supreme Court paused the investigation pending further legal review, including a look at what authority the attorney general has over sheriffs and whether Bonta is entitled to a court order blocking Bianco’s investigation.

The other case involves a lawsuit brought by the UCLA Voting Rights Project — Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra is an adviser — on behalf of four plaintiffs, including Democratic Assembly hopeful and Riverside City Councilmember Clarissa Cervantes.

That lawsuit argued that the seized 650,000 or so ballots should not have been taken from the registrar. In May, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law making it illegal to take marked ballots from election officials.

The law’s sponsor? Cervantes’ sister, state Sen. Sabrina Cervantes, D-Riverside.

_____