California sheriff running for governor seizes over 650,000 ballots from 2025 election | California
A California sheriff running for Republican governor seized more than 650,000 ballots during last year’s election, escalating an ongoing conflict with state officials.
Chad Bianco, the Riverside County sheriff, said he was investigating allegations that ballots were cast illegally in last year’s election, leading to the passage of Proposition 50. The proposal redrew congressional districts to help gerrymander the state in favor of Democrats, in response to similar measures in Republican states like Texas.
Election officials and California Attorney General Rob Bonta have both rejected the allegations. The gap between the automatic count and the final tally submitted to the state is only 103 votes, according to the Riverside Record.
Bianco investigators obtained the ballots after serving search warrants at the registrar’s office last month, he said at a news conference Friday. A Riverside Superior Court judge appointed a special master to count the ballots, Bianco said.
“This investigation is simple: physically count the ballots and compare that result with the total votes recorded,” Bianco said.
Bianco pushed the investigation for months, after a group called the Riverside Election Integrity Team, made up of local residents, claimed there was a discrepancy of 45,896 votes between the final vote tally and handwritten records that counted hand-counted ballots.
“There is no indication anywhere in the United States of widespread voter fraud,” Bonta said in a statement, according to the Los Angeles Times. “Counts, recounts, hand counts, audits and court cases all support this. »
Bonta, a Democrat, called Bianco’s move unprecedented and says it aims to sow distrust in the election.
Bianco is one of the two most prominent Republicans running in California’s gubernatorial primary, which features more than a half-dozen Democrats. California has a primary system that places all candidates on the same ballot, regardless of party, and sends the two candidates with the most votes to the November general election.
Bonta has repeatedly sent letters to Bianco’s office over the past two months, saying his staff is not qualified to conduct a recount. In one of the letters, Bonta wrote that the seizure of ballots was “unacceptable” and “sets a dangerous precedent and will only sow distrust in our elections.”
Last year, California voters decisively embraced the redistricting initiative championed by Gavin Newsom, the state’s governor, in response to Donald Trump’s attempts to pack new conservative seats into red states. California Republicans, joined by the Trump administration, challenged the measure, but the US Supreme Court rejected an emergency request to block the new maps from moving forward.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
