Overview
- Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco seized more than 650,000 ballots from the November 2025 Proposition 50 special election, citing a citizen audit that alleged a 45,000-vote discrepancy.
- County election officials dispute the activist group’s findings, attributing any differences to misunderstandings and human error while noting certified results reflect machine counts.
- A judge has placed the review under court supervision with a special master overseeing any counting, and the ballots remain in controlled custody.
- California Attorney General Rob Bonta challenged the legal basis and scope of the probe in letters to the sheriff, arguing the allegations have been refuted by the county registrar.
- California Secretary of State Shirley Weber condemned the effort as lacking credible evidence, and former state GOP executive director Jon Fleishman called it politically motivated.