Continuing to defy California’s attorney general, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco’s department seized more election materials this week as part of an investigation into an alleged — critics say debunked — discrepancy in ballots cast by county voters in the November 2025 special election, state lawyers said.
A brief hearing took place Friday in a Riverside courtroom on Attorney General Rob Bonta’s bid to pause Bianco’s probe into the Proposition 50 election.
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Another hearing on Bonta’s effort to speed his request to suspend the sheriff’s investigation is scheduled for Monday, according to Robert Tyler, Bianco’s lawyer.
This is in addition to the approximately 1,000 boxes of ballot materials Bianco’s investigators seized, and the latest seizure completes the execution of three search warrants obtained by Bianco’s department, according to Bonta’s lawyers.
Bianco’s probe has led to the seizure of more than 656,000 ballots cast by county voters in November from the Riverside County Registrar of Voters in an investigation that’s become entangled in partisan politics, with Bianco, a 2026 Republican candidate for governor, taking on Bonta, a Democrat.
Proposition 50 was a statewide ballot measure that redrew California’s congressional districts to favor Democrats. It passed with 64% of the vote throughout California and 56% of the vote in Riverside County.
The sheriff’s investigation, which is making national headlines, stems from a Riverside citizen’s election watchdog group’s allegation of a 45,000-gap between ballots cast in Riverside County and ballots received in last November’s election.
Riverside County Registrar of Voters Art Tinoco denied the gap was that large, putting the actual gap at 103 votes — well within the margin of error set by California’s Secretary of State.
Bianco has said that his office, under a court-appointed special master, will count all the ballots cast in Riverside County in November to see if the 45,000-vote gap exists and if so, why.
Bonta disputed Bianco’s assertion that a court-appointed special master is overseeing the count.
A Thursday search warrant “did not in fact order a recount or special master,” according to a footnote in the attorney general’s legal filing. It “merely authorized the seizure of the same materials as two prior search warrants did, but with an enhanced (and still deficient) explanation of probable cause.”
The investigation faces pushback from Bonta and other Democratic officials, who see it as a fishing expedition that threatens the public’s confidence in democracy.
Secretary of State Shirley Weber’s office argued that Bianco’s team lacks the skills and experience to handle ballots. Bianco said his investigators know how to count.
Bonta went to court this week to seek a pause in the investigation. Three appellate judges denied Bonta’s request, saying it had to be filed in Riverside County Superior Court.
As a result, Bonta’s office filed its petition in Riverside. In it, lawyers accuse Bianco of violating the attorney general’s directive “to pause all work on the investigation and provide the Attorney General” with documents “so he could better understand the basis of the investigation and work with the Sheriff to decide the best course of action.”
Bianco has denounced Bonta, who’s also investigating his department for alleged civil rights violations, as “an embarrassment to law enforcement” and accused the attorney general of interfering in a lawful investigation.
In addition to Bonta, the UCLA Voting Rights Project is also concerned about Bianco’s investigation. It asked the California Supreme Court this week to force the sheriff to return the seized ballots to the registrar.
The project filed an additional brief with the court upon learning Bianco seized the additional 426 boxes of ballot materials, the project said in a news release Friday.
Tyler, Bianco’s attorney, is president and chief counsel of Advocates for Faith & Freedom, a Murrieta-based law firm that takes up conservative causes.
Tyler declined to go into specifics as to why he’s representing the sheriff, other than to say he did not ask to represent Bianco and that “there was an apparent conflict” because the county counsel’s office, which normally represents the sheriff’s department, also represents the registrar.
Tyler defended Bianco investigating the November election for possible criminal activity, arguing that it’s “highly unlikely there would be a failure of 45,000 ballots to be recorded by the employees” in ballot logs that also have to be signed by two elections observers.
In a letter to the state appellate court Tuesday, Bonta said he learned from Riverside County’s registrar that the Sheriff’s Department planned to seize 13 pallets of mail ballot envelopes.
“Vote-by-mail ballot envelopes contain confidential information, particularly voter signatures, and are strictly protected from disclosure by California law,” Bonta wrote.
However, Tyler said that having the ballots in the sheriff’s custody is “more secure” than with the registrar.
He added that the investigation is not a recount of the election and that ballots will be separated from mail-in envelopes with voters’ signatures and that voters’ personal information and how they voted on Proposition 50 will not be at risk.
