Overview
- Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said his probe is on hold because of lawsuits, after his team seized more than 650,000 ballots from the November 2025 Proposition 50 election.
- Following Friday's emergency petition to the California Supreme Court, Attorney General Rob Bonta is also pressing a case in Riverside Superior Court to halt the probe and order the ballots returned.
- Bianco’s attorney confirmed a court has not appointed the special master he has referenced, and he said the seized ballots are under court jurisdiction with the sheriff’s department acting as custodian.
- Bonta and election-law experts warn that removing ballots from the registrar breaks the chain of custody and exposes protected voter signatures, which California law keeps confidential to guard privacy and trust.
- The investigation stems from a citizens group’s claim of a 45,896-vote gap that election officials say came from raw intake logs, noting the official variance was 103 ballots and that Proposition 50, a temporary redistricting measure, passed by wide margins.