A monthslong, politically charged dispute involving 650,000 seized ballots, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and California’s attorney general is getting its day before the state’s highest court.
The California Supreme Court has scheduled oral arguments for Monday, Aug. 24, in two cases stemming from the sheriff’s seizure earlier this year of ballots cast by Riverside County voters in November’s Proposition 50 special election, which redrew the state’s congressional districts to favor Democrats.
Bianco’s department got search warrants to confiscate the ballots in February and March. At the time, Bianco said his investigators were looking into an alleged 45,000-vote gap between ballots received by the county Registrar of Voters and ballots cast in the Proposition 50 election.
The Riverside Election Integrity Team, a citizens’ group, said it uncovered the gap while auditing election records. Registrar of Voters Art Tinoco has said the actual gap is much smaller — just 103 votes — and falls well within the acceptable margin of error set by California’s Secretary of State, which oversees elections.
The ballot seizure triggered a furious pushback by critics who argued Bianco’s probe was baseless, compromised the ballots’ integrity and threatened to undermine the public’s faith in elections.
Attorney General Rob Bonta sued to stop the probe, arguing among other things that Bianco ignored his lawful directives. Bianco’s legal team countered Bonta has no authority to stop California sheriffs from looking into possible criminal wrongdoing.
In April, the Supreme Court paused the investigation pending further legal review.
The UCLA Voting Rights Project — Democratic gubernatorial nominee Xavier Becerra serves as its adviser — also sued, arguing that ballots should not have been taken from the registrar’s custody. In May, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law making it illegal to take marked ballots from election officials.
The dispute has political overtones, with Bonta, a Democrat, accusing Bianco, a Republican who ran unsuccessfully for governor in the June primary, of acting recklessly. Bianco, who plans to run for reelection as sheriff in 2028, blasted Bonta as “an embarrassment to law enforcement.”
Arguments in the Bonta and UCLA cases will be heard at 10 a.m. at the Ronald M. George State Office Complex in San Francisco.
It’s unclear when the court will rule in either case.