In March 2026, Riverside County Sheriff and California gubernatorial candidate Chad Bianco seized more than 65,000 ballots from elections officials for the November 2025 special election on Proposition 50.
According to Bianco, he took the ballots to start an investigation into whether votes were “fraudulently counted” after a citizen activist group, the Riverside Election Integrity Team, alleged that 45,896 more ballots were counted than cast. Bianco secured three warrants from Riverside County Judge Jay Kiel, whom he endorsed in 2022 when he ran for the bench. The warrants remain sealed, though news organizations filed a motion to seek public access last week.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta immediately challenged Bianco’s investigation, calling it “unprecedented” and a “constitutional emergency.” His office filed a case in both Riverside County Superior Court and the state Supreme Court. Other groups, such as the UCLA Voting Rights Project, have also sought legal challenges to return the seized ballots to the county registrar.
On March 30, 2026, Bianco said that the probe was “on hold” because of “politically motivated lawsuits and court filings.”
This probably won’t be the first or last controversial move or statement from Bianco. For instance, he briefly joined the Oath Keepers militia in 2014, supports the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (an organization that believes local sheriff authority is superior to state and federal agencies) and has said he would “cooperate” with federal immigration enforcement if they came to Riverside County.
Therefore, it is no surprise that he would seize the opportunity to stage a high-profile investigation to garner publicity for his California gubernatorial campaign. However, this PR stunt has real consequences in a time when public trust in elections is being questioned.
After losing the 2020 presidential election, President Trump claimed voter fraud involving voting machines, mail-in ballots and non-citizen voting, despite a lack of evidence supporting his allegations. However, he has a history of undermining elections he loses, including when he won the 2016 presidential election but claimed he only lost the popular vote due to “wrongdoing.” Now, his administration wants to “nationalize” the 2026 midterm elections by restricting mail-in ballots and creating a nationwide list of “verified eligible voters.”
Trump’s election denialism has damaged a key aspect of democracy: trust in elections, a foundation of the U.S. democratic system. A 2024 study found that 57% of Americans said they are ‘very or somewhat confident that the votes for president will be accurately cast and counted.’ While 84% of Democrats expressed confidence, only 28% of Republicans did.
Similar to the situation at the federal level, there is no credible evidence indicating large-scale fraud in Riverside County. Registrar of Voters (ROV) Art Tinoco clarified that the activist group’s audit was based on incomplete data, relying on handwritten documents derived from hand-counted ballots, which are only meant as reference guides.
Instead, the county’s Election Information Management System and the Liberty Vote System found a discrepancy of 103 ballots, which was reported to the California Secretary of State’s Office. This does not mean that citizen oversight of local governments and election officials should be discouraged. However, incorrect and unverified claims should not be promoted by public officials.
The timing of this investigation is also months after the actual election. If legitimate issues had been raised, the county could have investigated the ballots earlier through a more standard, cooperative and transparent process — not by secretly obtaining sealed warrants and seizing ballots from county offices. Bianco is just trying to stir the pot by engaging with Trump’s election denialism, especially since approximately 56% of Riverside County residents supported Prop 50.
Additionally, the election probe is an overreach of Bianco’s authority. The sheriff’s department is responsible for law enforcement services in Riverside County, including running county jails, performing Coroner-Public Administrator functions and court services. It does not say that the county sheriff can act alone in investigating suspected election fraud months after the election. In California, these investigations are usually conducted by the county’s district attorney’s office and involve the county’s elections registrar and the California Secretary of State. County sheriffs like Bianco do not act independently.
Ultimately, Bianco is casting doubt on a system that shows no evidence of election fraud. The investigation undermines confidence in Riverside County’s elections and in the voters who supported Prop 50. This is a PR move ahead of the California gubernatorial race, where recent polls show Republican candidates Steve Hilton and Bianco are leading among primary voters.
Riverside County residents should not get involved in a campaign controversy just to give Bianco some publicity. The election investigation needs to end without delay.
