Overview: California Attorney General Rob Bonta has filed an emergency petition to stop Riverside County Sheriff and Republican governor candidate Chad Bianco from recounting over 650,000 ballots he seized from election officials. Bianco claimed he was investigating a discrepancy in the number of votes counted during the 2025 special election, but the claims were based on a citizen group’s count that was off by 103 due to not having access to confidential and provisional ballots. Bonta’s investigation into Bianco’s actions is ongoing, and this is not the first time the two have clashed over the Sheriff’s Office’s practices.
Breanna Reeves
On Sunday, News Channel 3 was the first to report a statement from the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department related to Chad Bianco’s recent seizure of ballots from the 2025 Special Election. “We are on hold because of the politically motivated lawsuits and court filings,” the statement read regarding what appears to be Bianco’s politically motivated special investigation into last year’s election.
This action came as a surprise.
Friday evening, Attorney General Rob Bonta filed an emergency petition with the court to stop Riverside County Sheriff and current Republican governor candidate Chad Bianco from recounting more than 650,000 ballots he seized from election officials. The courts however disagreed. A three-judge panel quickly denied Bonta’s attempt to stop the recount. With the court having initially allowed Bianco’s actions to continue, Sunday’s statement appears to be in response to the court’s decision to hold a more expanded hearing on the issue on Monday, March 30.
During a press conference on March 20, Bianco said he was investigating a discrepancy in the number of votes counted during the 2025 special election.
“This investigation is simple: physically count the ballots and compare that result with the total votes recorded,” Bianco said during the press conference.
Voters cast ballots for one measure: Proposition 50, which gave voters a choice to approve an emergency congressional district map. Fifty-six percent (369,565) of voters in Riverside county voted in favor of the proposition, with 657,322 total ballots cast, according to the final election results counted by the Riverside County Registrar of Voters.
The claims of a discrepancy in votes come from a citizen group who stated they conducted their own tally of the votes, and alleged there was a discrepancy of more than 45,000 votes between the number of ballots cast and the number of ballots counted.
In February during a workshop hosted by the Board of Supervisors, Riverside County Registrar of Voters Art Tinoco addressed their concerns during his presentation. He confirmed that the discrepancy between ballots cast and ballots counted is 103, and the citizen group’s count was off due to not having access to confidential and provisional ballots that were cast.
In the 70-page petition, Bonta wrote that Bianco’s criminal investigation and seizure of ballots from the Riverside County Registrar of Voters is “unprecedented in state history” and noted that “a rushed and inadequately supported criminal investigation reinforces false narratives.”
This isn’t the first time Bonta and Bianco have gone toe-to-toe. Prior to previous attempts made last month by Bianco to initiate a criminal investigation into the number of votes counted in the November 2025 Special Election, Bonta launched a civil rights investigation into the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office.
The investigation came after Riverside County made headlines for the number of in-custody deaths over the past few years. Bonta’s investigation sought to determine whether the Sheriff’s Office practiced unconstitutional policing related to the conditions of confinement in their jails, excessive force, and other misconduct. The outcome of the investigation is pending.
In 2024, Black Voice News conducted an investigative series on the 19 in-custody deaths in Riverside County during 2022. It was third highest number of in-custody deaths in the state.
For years, local coalitions and organizations like Starting Over, Inc., a social justice-focused nonprofit organization that supports those impacted by the criminal justice system, have called for increased police oversight.
Last March, a coalition of organizations launched a petition, demanding accountability within the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department and is working to qualify a measure for the 2028 election as time constraints impeded the coalition’s ability to qualify the initiative for this year’s election.
“Sheriff Bianco has repeatedly drawn criticism for false or misleading claims — whether regarding his department’s lack of transparency or the alarming number of in-custody deaths in Riverside County. His latest action continues this troubling pattern,” ACLU SoCal Executive Director Chandra Bhatnagar said in a statement.
“Let’s be clear: no sheriff has a legitimate role — much less experience — in administering our elections or in handling hundreds of thousands of voters’ ballots. The sheriff’s investigation represents a serious threat to voter privacy, undermines our democratic process and raises questions about the misuse of law enforcement authority for political gain,” Bhatnagar continued.
Despite widespread criticism by some local and state officials regarding Bianco’s unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud, Riverside County Sheriff and CA governor want-to-be Chad Bianco, has continued to push his questionable investigation into the 2025 Special Election. After having already seized about 650K ballots last week, on Tuesday Bianco seized an additional 425 boxes of ballot related material, according to court documents filed by the state attorney general’s office.
In addition, Bianco’s unsubstantiated claims were further debunked by election officials who stated the group whose claim triggered Bianco’s investigation had relied on raw data which is prone to human error rather than actual processed votes.
Black Voice News will continue to follow this story.