On Sept. 24, the Supreme Court of California ruled unanimously against the Riverside County Sheriff, Chad Bianco, for unlawfully conducting an investigation in which his department seized around 650,000 Riverside election ballots in February of 2026 as well as ignoring Attorney General Rob Bonta’s order to cease the investigation.
Bianco’s investigation began in February 2026 after the non-partisan activist group of citizens called the Riverside Election Integrity Team (REIT) flagged initial results of the 2025 Special Election as concerning due to the discrepancy of 45,896 ballots between intake log and the number reported by the Registrar of Voters. Having observed this, the REIT requested that Bianco further examine the results, leading to an investigation by his department which found no evidence of voter fraud. Despite this, Bianco continued to look into the reports, moving to obtain a signature from Riverside County Superior Court Judge Jay Kiel which authorized the turnover of the ballots.
Bianco was made to immediately return all seized ballots and election materials to the Riverside County Office of Registrar following the justices ruling in the case of Clarissa Cervantes v. Chad Bianco. Cervantes, a Riverside City Council member representing Ward 2 and candidate for state Assembly, filed the suit against Bianco alleging that the ballot seizure was illegal. The written opinion on the case called his actions “unlawful” and further detailed that his actions violated safeguards set in the California Election Code, Section 15551.
In an additional ruling, the justices stated that Bianco had broken state law by defying directives from California Attorney General, Rob Bonta, who mandated that Bianco pause his investigation into alleged voter fraud due to concerns of improper ballot seizure. Bonta initially asked for the investigation to be postponed in order to further assess the situation. However, Bianco did not follow Bonta’s mandates, instead he referenced Article 5, Section 13 of the Constitution of California which states, “Whenever in the opinion of the Attorney General any law of the State is not being adequately enforced in any county, it shall be the duty of the Attorney General to prosecute any violations of law of which the superior court should have jurisdiction.”
The Superior Court responded stating that Bonta was within his rights to deliver “clear, specific and lawful directions,” as the mandate was within his scope of authority to deliver.
On Sept. 29, all of the ballots and voting materials seized during the investigation were returned to the Riverside County Registrar of Voters.
In a statement provided by the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office on behalf of Bianco, he maintained that the investigation was a lawful investigation into voter fraud,“The facts of this case have never been disputed, this was an obvious legal attempt to prevent the investigation from occurring that was successful.” Bianco also claimed that the ruling would negatively impact the state’s public safety, “This ruling and the destruction of potential evidence without answers undermines the public trust in our systems. Riverside County residents should be assured that as long as I am their Sheriff, I will continue to fight crime and corruption regardless of where it comes from.”
