California sheriff doubles down on seizing ballots as state Supreme Court hears whether he must return them

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco remains defiant as the California Supreme Court deliberates whether he has to return approximately 650,000 ballots he seized from a November 2025 special election on redistricting.

The court heard arguments Monday from Bianco’s lawyers and from California, where state Attorney General Rob Bonta launched a legal challenge to Bianco’s ballot seizures in March, ordering him to return the ballots.

Bianco, however, refused, arguing through his legal team that he had a legal obligation to investigate the ballots after receiving a complaint.

“I did this, and this was legal,” Bianco told reporters. “I went a different route. They are legal. Both routes are legal. It’s just their side doesn’t like the route I chose.”

Bianco is still holding the ballots, his lawyer Bradley Hertz told reporters Monday, arguing that they are evidence.

“The sheriff is holding that evidence, safeguarding it as a custodian for the court,” Hertz said.

The ballots are from a November 2025 special election in which state voters decided on Proposition 50, a legislative redistricting measure that passed by more than 3.4 million votes, according to the California Secretary of State.

“How strange, that now we have evidence that
the machines counted something different than the ballots that we have,
and an Attorney General runs in to stop that investigation so that we’ll
never know,” Bianco said outside the courthouse.“In filing his March legal challenge to Bianco’s ballot seizures, Bonta joined the UCLA Voting Rights Project, which launched a separate legal challenge to Bianco’s actions.”This
is a sheriff that – despite the clear language in the California
constitution, and in California government code, providing me direct
supervision, authority over him – failed to comply with it,” Bonta told
reporters outside the courthouse Monday.