Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican who is also one of two prominent Republican gubernatorial candidates in California, said his office has paused its election-related investigation, citing court filings and legal challenges that have mounted since he seized ballot materials. In a Saturday statement, Bianco said his office put the probe on hold “because of the politically motivated lawsuits and court filings.”
The decision comes after California Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta and the UCLA Voting Rights Project launched legal challenges arguing the sheriff lacked authority to take custody of election materials. Bianco’s office had previously said the seizure and the investigation were legal and had been approved by a Riverside County judge, but the new filings contested that authority.
Bianco’s probe centered on allegations of election fraud tied to the 2025 election. He previously said his investigation and seizure involved more than 650,000 ballots cast in the November election, and he also said he had taken additional ballots from a county election office after orders from Bonta’s office to stop. In Monday statements cited in the dispute, Bonta’s office said it would continue its petitions in both the California Supreme Court and the superior court.
The legal challenges also placed the custody of voted ballots at the center of the dispute. A spokesperson for Bonta’s office said, “Our focus is on what the Sheriff does, not what he says,” framing the litigation around the actions of the sheriff’s office rather than his public assertions. In parallel, the UCLA Voting Rights Project filed a petition on behalf of several Riverside County voters and asked the state Supreme Court to order Bianco to return the ballots while the case proceeds.
UCLA Voting Rights Project attorney Sonni Waknin said in a statement that election law requires voted ballots to remain with election officials, adding that nothing presented by the sheriff changed that “basic rule.” The petition, filed Monday, sought court intervention over the ballot custody dispute as the legal fight continues.
The controversy began in February and escalated over March. The sheriff’s office seized 1,000 boxes of election materials as part of an effort to investigate a complaint from a local citizens group about the ballot count from a November 2025 special election related to redistricting. Local election officials told the county Board of Supervisors last month that the complaint was unfounded, and after Bonta ordered Bianco to halt his probe, Bianco’s office seized another 426 boxes of ballots last week.
The ballot dispute also unfolded amid broader national election-related rhetoric from Republicans. The AP reporting described President Donald Trump as repeatedly disputing the results of the 2020 election, citing unsubstantiated instances of fraud, and it noted that his administration had recently seized ballots and other documents from an election office in Georgia.