California Supreme Court Orders Sheriff to Return 650,000 Ballots He Seized

The California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco acted unlawfully when his deputies seized more than 650,000 voted ballots from the county's election office, and ordered him to hand them back.

In two unanimous decisions, the justices found that Bianco violated the state Elections Code when he took the ballots in February under a search warrant, and that he broke the law a second time when he ignored directives from Attorney General Rob Bonta to stand down. The court ordered the sheriff to return the ballots to the Riverside County registrar of voters and to "refrain from further handling of the ballots except as necessary to comply with our order."

"In short, Bianco's arguments fail to persuade us that we should interpret section 15551 in a manner inconsistent with its plain text, which mandates that voted ballots remain in the custody of elections officials," Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero wrote. She added that giving law enforcement "unfettered access to ballots, or the ability to handle and count them in secret based on unregulated protocols, itself creates a substantial risk to election integrity."

The ballots came from the November 2025 special election on Proposition 50, the redistricting measure pushed by Gov. Gavin Newsom that redrew five Republican-held U.S. House seats to favor Democrats. The measure passed easily statewide and carried Riverside County by roughly 80,000 votes. Bianco said he opened a criminal investigation after a local citizens group complained that about 45,800 more votes had been reported to the secretary of state than were cast. County election officials said the gap between the machine count and the certified count was about 100 votes, and called the complaint unfounded.

Bianco, a Republican, was running for governor when he took the ballots. He did not advance past the June primary and has since said he will run for re-election as sheriff in 2028. His deputies began recounting the ballots under a court-appointed special master, then halted in late March, citing what Bianco called "politically motivated lawsuits." The state Supreme Court formally ordered the probe paused in April. The ballots were held at an undisclosed location while the cases played out.

The two cases were Cervantes v. Bianco, brought by UCLA's Voting Rights Project on behalf of Riverside County voters including City Councilmember Clarissa Cervantes, and Bonta v. Bianco, which tested the attorney general's power to supervise a county sheriff. The California Constitution gives the attorney general "direct supervision over every district attorney and sheriff." At oral arguments in August, justices called Bianco's positions "bizarre" and "more than counterintuitive."

"Whether it's a sheriff in Riverside or the President of the United States, we won't let anyone take away Californians' voice in our democracy," Bonta said at a news conference after the ruling. "Come November, we're ready for whatever comes our way."

Bianco said he was "very disappointed" and was weighing an appeal, including in federal court. "I will obey the writs," he wrote. "I will not obey the message behind them — that local law enforcement works for Sacramento, not for the people who elected us."

The ruling lands six weeks before the Nov. 3 midterms. Election officials and civil rights groups had watched the case closely as a possible playbook for local officials trying to seize ballots after this year's vote, and the Trump administration has itself seized 2020 election records in Georgia and Arizona. Newsom signed a package of 13 election bills on Saturday that makes it a felony to seize ballots, voting machines or election records before results are certified. "Today's ruling affirms that in California we will defend democracy — using every branch of government," Newsom said.