Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican now running for governor, has seized more than half a million ballots from county election officials and launched an investigation into what he says is a significant discrepancy in the ballot count from a November 2025 special election on redistricting.
The seizure, carried out with a warrant in February, included nearly 1,000 boxes of ballots and elections materials taken from the Riverside County elections office. Bianco announced the probe at a news conference Friday, saying his office acted after a local citizens group filed a complaint alleging a gap between handwritten ballot intake logs and the number of votes reported to the state.
Bianco described the effort plainly.
"This investigation is simple: Physically count the ballots and compare that result with the total votes reported."
According to Bianco, the alleged discrepancy amounts to about 45,800 votes. That is not a rounding error. That is a number large enough to change outcomes, and Bianco says it warrants a hard look.
Riverside County elections officials have disputed Bianco's claims. At county meetings, they said the machine count and the final count submitted to the state differed by only about 100 votes. They argue the handwritten rolls, which were not relied on to check the official count, were maintained by temporary elections workers who had worked long days and may have made mistakes in their logs.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, has inserted himself into the dispute. According to The Associated Press, Bonta sent letters to Bianco's office over the past two months claiming that the sheriff's staff is not qualified to conduct a recount. In one letter, Bonta called the ballot seizure "unacceptable" and wrote that it "sets a dangerous precedent and will only sow distrust in our elections."
That framing deserves scrutiny. The sheriff obtained a warrant, meaning a judge reviewed the basis for the seizure and authorized it. A special master has now been appointed by a judge to supervise the resumed count. Those are not the hallmarks of a rogue operation. Those are lawful investigative steps. Bonta's repeated claim that verifying a ballot count will "sow distrust" raises an obvious question: if the numbers are clean, what exactly is he worried about?
The November 2025 special election asked Riverside County voters to approve a measure to redraw congressional district lines in a way that would favor Democrats in the upcoming midterm election. The measure passed in the county by a margin of more than 80,000 votes. Riverside County is home to approximately 2.5 million people, and the ballots now under review number in excess of half a million.
Bianco has been elected sheriff in Riverside County twice. He is now one of two prominent Republicans running for governor in a crowded June primary. California uses a top-two primary system, meaning all candidates appear on a single ballot regardless of party, and only the top two vote-getters advance to the general election. Steve Hilton, another top Republican, is also in the race, alongside more than half a dozen Democrats.
Leading California Democrats are reportedly worried that their large field of candidates could split the vote, potentially sending both Bianco and Hilton to the general election, an outcome that would be extraordinary in a state where Democrats hold dominant registration advantages.
Bianco pushed back directly on the suggestion that the investigation is tied to his gubernatorial ambitions, saying it had "absolutely nothing to do" with his campaign. He framed the action as a core function of his office.
"I have a duty to investigate alleged crime in Riverside County."
He called the seizure "a fact-finding mission." Bianco said the physical count had started and stopped but would now resume under the supervision of the court-appointed special master.
Does the physical count of ballots match the total reported to the state? If the discrepancy is closer to 100 votes, as county elections officials claim, then the handwritten logs were simply sloppy and the official tally stands. If the gap approaches the 45,800 votes Bianco says the citizens group identified, the implications for the integrity of the special election are severe.
Authorities have not publicly confirmed the identity of the citizens group that filed the complaint, the name of the judge who issued the warrant, or the name of the special master now overseeing the count. The court that appointed the special master has not been publicly identified. Those details will matter as the investigation progresses.
Investigators will also need to determine whether the handwritten ballot intake logs were merely the product of fatigued temporary workers, as county officials suggest, or whether they reflect a more significant irregularity in how ballots were received and processed.
Attorney General Bonta called the seizure "unprecedented." Perhaps it is. But what should concern voters more: a duly elected sheriff using a lawful warrant and a court-supervised process to verify an election count, or a state attorney general spending two months trying to stop him from doing it? In a county of 2.5 million people, where a redistricting measure passed that will reshape congressional representation, the public has every right to know whether the numbers add up.
If the count is accurate, the special master's review will confirm it. If it is not, then Bianco may be the only official in California who bothered to check.
