SAN FRANCISCO (Diya TV) — The California Supreme Court ordered Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco to return roughly 650,000 ballots his office seized while investigating alleged irregularities in a 2025 election. In two unanimous rulings Thursday, Sept. 24, the justices found that the seizure violated state election law and that Bianco had to follow directives from California Attorney General Rob Bonta.
The ballots came from the November 2025 special election on Proposition 50, which redrew California’s congressional districts. Bianco obtained search warrants after a local group claimed it had found a discrepancy in Riverside County’s vote count. Registrar of Voters Art Tinoco said the group had misread the data and that the actual discrepancy was 103 ballots.
Bianco argued that the warrants allowed his deputies to take the ballots as evidence. The court disagreed. It ruled that California law requires election officials to retain custody of voted ballots, including when law enforcement investigates suspected misconduct. The Elections Code provides ways to examine ballots without removing them from election officials’ control, the justices said.
The court directed Bianco to return the ballots to Tinoco. In a separate ruling, it upheld Bonta’s authority to issue binding instructions to county sheriffs. Bianco had rejected the attorney general’s orders to halt the investigation and return the election materials.
Bianco said he disagreed with the rulings but would comply. His office had begun counting the seized ballots before legal challenges stopped the effort.
The rulings arrive ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm election. They resolve the immediate dispute over custody of the Riverside County ballots and clarify how sheriffs may examine voting records during an investigation.
