Riverside County Sheriff and gubernatorial candidate Chad Bianco says he does not believe election fraud was committed in the special election that redrew congressional districts — but says the machines and systems used to count ballots may be flawed, a contention state officials and election experts sharply dispute.
In an exclusive interview with USA TODAY this week, Bianco said the controversy surrounding his seizure of ballots from a November 2025 special election has prompted election officials, law enforcement agencies, and conservative activists from across the country to contact his office about launching similar probes.
“There are a lot of people reaching out to us from other states, from other counties than Riverside, saying the same thing’s happening here,” Bianco said. “We have former poll workers saying there is massive fraud going on — but nobody is looking into it.”
California election officials and voting‑rights experts strongly dispute that characterization. They say Bianco’s investigation is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how ballots are counted and certified — and warn that a sheriff unilaterally seizing ballots from a completed election sets a dangerous precedent in a state where professional, nonpartisan officials oversee elections.
“This is not how elections are audited in California,” Secretary of State Shirley Weber’s office said in a statement. “Sheriffs are not elections officials, and they are not equipped to conduct these types of investigations.”
A dispute Californians have already lived through — now with new stakes
The election at the center of the dispute — a November 2025 special election approving Proposition 50, which allowed Democrats to redraw congressional district lines — was certified months ago. The measure passed decisively statewide and in Riverside County.
No challenges were raised at the time.
That changed in January, when a conservative group, the Riverside Election Integrity Team, claimed there was a discrepancy between preliminary ballot intake logs and the final certified vote total. Bianco says the group’s review showed roughly 46,000 more votes than ballots.
County election officials say the real discrepancy was about 100 ballots — a routine difference caused by late‑arriving mail ballots, provisional ballots and cured signatures that are included in certified totals but not early intake logs.
“This is apples and oranges,” said Pamela Smith, president of the nonpartisan voting‑technology group Verified Voting. “The initial numbers he’s citing are incomplete by design. California has a multilayered process to reconcile ballots, and that process worked.”
Instead of requesting a recount or audit through established state procedures, Bianco obtained search warrants and seized more than 650,000 ballots and election materials from the Riverside County Registrar of Voters — a move Attorney General Rob Bonta called unprecedented and unlawful.
Bianco: ‘We’re being blocked from transparency’
Bianco rejects that the investigation is politically motivated, despite running for governor and currently leading some GOP primary polls.
He told USA TODAY he does not believe voters committed fraud, but argues the problem lies with the machines and systems used to count ballots, not intentional wrongdoing.
“Other people are finding this anomaly too, between the votes counted and the total ballots,” Bianco said. “And then the state tells us we don’t even have the authority to inspect the machines. That’s not transparency.”
His argument echoes a broader debate already playing out elsewhere in California and across the nation. In Shasta County, the controversial Registrar of Voters, Clint Curtis, has pushed for expanded hand‑counting of ballots, saying it would increase transparency — a move that state and local election officials have warned can introduce errors and inaccuracies, according to extensive reporting by the USA TODAY Network’s Redding Record Searchlight. Election experts say large‑scale hand counts are more prone to human error than machine tabulation paired with audits and reconciliation checks.
California officials say Bianco’s claims similarly mischaracterize how the state’s election system works.
State law already requires regular testing and inspection of voting systems by election officials and provides multiple safeguards, including post‑election audits and recounts. What California does not allow, officials say, is law enforcement independently seizing ballots from a completed election without first exhausting those established processes.
“There’s recourse through normal channels,” said Smith, the president of Verified Voting. “If you have questions, you work with elections officials. You don’t take the ballots.”
State officials warn of erosion of public trust
Bonta has accused Bianco of sowing doubt in California’s election system for political gain, calling the ballot seizure “unprecedented in both scope and scale.”
“There is no indication, anywhere in the United States, of widespread voter fraud,” Bonta said. “Counts, recounts, hand counts, audits and court cases all support this.”
The attorney general’s office says it repeatedly urged Bianco to pursue a recount or legal challenge through election officials. When he refused, Bonta sought court intervention and warned that the investigation threatened voter privacy and election integrity.
Election experts say the broader risk is not the outcome of one election, but the normalization of law‑enforcement intervention in election administration.
“This is a dangerous precedent,” Smith said. “Once voters believe ballots can be seized months later based on unfounded claims, trust in the system erodes — regardless of party.”
Investigation on hold, but far from over
On March 30, Bianco announced he was placing the investigation “on hold” amid mounting legal challenges. A Riverside County judge has declined to appoint a special master to oversee any ballot review until those disputes are resolved.
Even so, Bianco told USA TODAY he intends to continue pressing the case and claims an attorney involved in election disputes in other states has identified similar ballot discrepancies elsewhere. He did not provide documentation or identify the attorney.
Meanwhile, a coalition of media organizations — including USA TODAY and The Desert Sun — has asked the court to unseal the search warrants authorizing the ballot seizures, arguing that the public has a right to understand the legal basis for such an extraordinary action.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Exclusive interview with Chad Bianco on Prop 50 ballot seizure
