California Sheriff Seizes 650K Ballots to Determine 2025 Election Integrity
A California sheriff, who is also a Republican candidate for governor, seized more than 650,000 ballots this weekend from the state’s November 2025 election as part of an investigation into voter fraud — one that investigation officials say he is not authorized to do.
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco is reviewing the state’s special election on controversial ballot measure Proposition 50 after a third-party organization, the Riverside Election Integrity Team, claimed to have discovered about 45,000 excess votes in the county.
While California elections officials rejected the team’s findings, Sheriff Bianco said his office would conduct another count to see if it could confirm the organization’s claims.
“This investigation is simple: physically count the ballots and compare that result with the total votes cast,” Bianco told reporters at a news conference Friday.
Watch the press conference here:
Proposition 50 was a key proposal pushed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom seeking to redraw California’s congressional districts to favor Democrats and thwart a similar effort by Texas Republicans.
California Secretary of State Shirley Weber argued that Bianco had no authority to conduct a recount.
“The Riverside County Sheriff’s Office has taken actions based on allegations that lack credible evidence and risk undermining public confidence in our elections,” Weber said, according to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office. New York Post.
She continued: “The sheriff’s assertion that his deputies know how to count is admirable. The fact remains that he and his deputies are not election officials and have no expertise in election administration.”
Additionally, Riverside Elections Manager Art Tinoco rejected the Riverside Election Integrity Team’s conclusion earlier this month, saying the watchdog group had an incorrect interpretation of how votes were counted on Election Day.
“Tinoco told county supervisors earlier this year that initial intake records compiled by election officials were intended to be estimates rather than exact tallies of the number of votes cast,” according to the report. “Even so, he said the final tally was within 0.16 percent, or 103 votes, of the initial estimate.”
The integrity team maintains its method was correct, but the disagreement led Bianco to open its own investigation. Bianco claimed that California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, tried to intervene in his investigation; However, Bonta says his office was only seeking to know the basis of the investigation.
The attorney general told Fox News:
We have attempted to work collaboratively with the Sheriff’s Office to better understand the basis of their investigation, including reviewing the warrants themselves and requesting the Sheriff’s complete investigative file. We made these requests pursuant to the Attorney General’s oversight authority over county sheriffs.
Meanwhile, the sheriff has delayed, blocked and refused to work with us in good faith. To date, the sheriff has not provided most of the requested documents. But what we have learned raises serious questions about the merits of this investigation.
His office added: “We are particularly concerned about the legal deficiencies in the affidavits underlying the arrest warrants, including the omission of important facts. »
Bianco said Friday he received several letters from Bonta ordering him to stop the election investigation.
He called Bonta “a disgrace to law enforcement” and found it “disturbing” that an attorney general would be “outraged” that someone would conduct an investigation into election integrity.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the bestselling author of the Los Angeles crime novel Below the line and nine other mystery novels and non-fiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com to find out more.
