Bonta, UCLA group sue to halt Riverside sheriff’s ballot seizure

Bonta and UCLA seek to stop Bianco’s ballot seizure in Riverside County

California Attorney General Rob Bonta and the UCLA Voting Rights Project filed legal challenges this week aimed at halting a Republican sheriff’s seizure and recount of more than half a million 2025 election ballots in Riverside County. The action escalated after Bonta urged the court to step in quickly, while Sheriff Chad Bianco said the investigation was lawful and authorized by a judge. A Riverside County judge held a hearing Friday on Bonta’s request for the case to move quickly.

Bianco is running for governor, and the ballot dispute has unfolded alongside his broader political ambitions. Bonta’s filing contends that the sheriff’s efforts risk damaging public confidence in upcoming state elections, according to the text of the petition.

The dispute began last month, when Bianco’s office launched what he described as a “fact-finding mission” after receiving a complaint from a local citizens group about the ballot count from a November 2025 special election tied to redistricting. Bianco said his office had launched the investigation after the complaint, and he described the seized materials as including about 650,000 ballots in Riverside County, where he has twice been elected sheriff. Local election officials told the county Board of Supervisors last month that the complaint was unfounded.

As Bonta’s new court efforts moved forward, Bianco’s office said it took additional election materials. In a Thursday filing, Bianco’s office said he seized another 426 boxes of election materials this week. Bianco said in a statement that his probe was approved by a judge and that, “We are conducting a lawful investigation, approved by a judge,” adding, “I think the failed democratic candidates are just trying to rally a base for their own political benefit.”

Bonta’s efforts to pause the count faced an earlier procedural setback. The AP reported that Bonta’s first attempt this week to stop the count failed after an appeals court said his petition was filed in the wrong place; Bonta refiled it in a lower court. In the petition’s warning, Bonta argued that without swift action the sheriff’s investigation could jeopardize trust in elections statewide and set a precedent for future attempts to contest results through misuse of law enforcement authority and criminal process.

The UCLA Voting Rights Project challenged the seizure separately, arguing that the sheriff had no authority to seize the ballots. In a state Supreme Court filing Thursday, the group argued the seizure violated state laws on election materials and that law enforcement officials are prohibited from interfering with ballot counting, in California and nationwide. The group asked the state Supreme Court to order Bianco to return the ballots, according to the AP report.

Former California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, a Democrat who is running for governor, served as a senior advisor of the UCLA Voting Rights Project. Becerra said in a statement that, “Law enforcement officials are legally prohibited from interfering in counting ballots, in California and nationwide,” and he added that, “A candidate for Governor should know the law and lead by example, not weaponize his law enforcement office for political gain.”

Bianco has said his office obtained warrants signed by a judge to seize the ballots and that the discrepancy amounted to about 45,800 votes, an allegation county election officials have disputed in public meetings. Elections officials have said the machine count and final count submitted to the state differed by about 100 votes, and they argued that the handwritten rolls were kept by temporary workers who had worked long days and may have made mistakes.

Bianco previously said his office would physically count the ballots and compare the result with the total votes reported to the state. The counting, the AP reported, was being done by sheriff’s officials under the supervision of a special master appointed by a court, and Bianco did not provide a timeline for when the counting would conclude.

The ballot probe also echoes broader election disputes that have surfaced in recent years. The AP noted that President Donald Trump has repeatedly disputed the results of the 2020 election, citing unsubstantiated instances of fraud, and that his administration recently seized ballots and other documents from an election office in Georgia. Some Republicans, the AP said, have mirrored Trump’s rhetoric about voting in their states.