Who is Sheriff Chad Bianco, the California governor candidate who seized 650,000 ballots?
Democracy Docket • • nation
Key Points:
- Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco seized 650,000 ballots from California’s recent redistricting referendum, raising concerns about election integrity and sparking a legal battle over the custody of the ballots.
- Bianco, a leading Republican gubernatorial candidate, has a history of hardline conservative rhetoric and ties to far-right groups, framing his ballot seizure as part of a broader GOP effort to challenge election results.
- The ballot seizure was prompted by a volunteer group's claim of discrepancies in the referendum vote count, but these claims appear to be based on a misunderstanding of election data.
- Riverside County voters have filed a lawsuit demanding the return of the ballots, criticizing both Bianco and the county voter registrar for handing over the ballots without fully contesting the search warrants, which California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta says fail to meet legal standards.
- The judge who issued the warrants endorses Bianco’s campaign, and local Democratic officials have condemned the seizure as a political stunt, while Bianco insists the investigation is a lawful effort to verify vote counts amid ongoing conspiracy theories about election fraud.
