Sheriff digs in over 650K seized ballots as California Supreme Court deliberates

Key Points:

• Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco is refusing to return approximately 650,000 ballots seized from a November 2025 special election on redistricting, despite a legal challenge from California Attorney General Rob Bonta.
• Bianco argues that he is legally obligated to investigate the ballots after receiving a complaint and claims both his actions and the state's demands are legally valid but based on different interpretations.
• The California Supreme Court is currently deliberating the dispute, with Bianco's lawyer stating the ballots are being safeguarded as evidence and a custodian for the court.
• Attorney General Bonta insists Bianco is violating clear state constitutional and government codes by not complying with orders to return the ballots, emphasizing his supervisory authority over the sheriff.
• The ballots in question are from a special election where Proposition 50, a legislative redistricting measure, passed by over 3.4 million votes, but Bianco questions the official count's validity, alleging discrepancies between machine counts and physical ballots.