The California Supreme Court handed down an order Wednesday temporarily halting an election fraud investigation led by Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, whose office has seized more than 650,000 ballots from county election officials.
The ballots retrieved by the Republican sheriff’s office were cast in the state’s special election on redistricting in the fall. Bianco is a GOP California gubernatorial candidate and is neck-and-neck in the polls with Republican Steve Hilton, whom President Donald Trump recently endorsed.
The effort drew scrutiny from California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D), who asked the state’s high court to intervene. The court sided with Bonta for now while it reviews the legal merits of the case.
The California Supreme Court specifically ordered Bianco to pause the investigation and preserve all seized ballots. Bonta hailed the ruling as a “necessary and appropriate response to what is clearly an unprecedented situation” caused by the law enforcement official.
“The Riverside County Sheriff willfully defied my direct orders, seized 650,000 ballots, misused criminal investigatory tools, and created a constitutional emergency in the process,” Bonta said in a statement provided to the Washington Examiner.
Bianco launched an investigation into an alleged ballot-count discrepancy last month based on a complaint from a local citizens group. The purpose of the investigation was to compare the number of physical ballots to the total reported votes, he said.
Bianco previously said he voluntarily put the ballot investigation on hold “because of the politically motivated lawsuits and court filings.” Besides the Democratic attorney general, the UCLA Voting Rights Project is leading its own legal challenge.
The sheriff’s decision to pause the investigation came shortly after his office seized an additional 426 boxes of ballots. Initially, about 1,000 boxes of election materials were seized in March.
“What the Sheriff says and what he does are often two different things,” Bonta added. “Today’s decision by the California Supreme Court reins in the destabilizing actions of a rogue Sheriff, prohibiting him from continuing this investigation while our litigation continues.”
The Washington Examiner contacted the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office for comment. The office said a statement from Bianco was requested.
TRUMP ENDORSEMENT OF STEVE HILTON COULD BACKFIRE IN CALIFORNIA GUBERNATORIAL RACE
The county sheriff had obtained a search warrant from Riverside County Superior Court Judge Jay Kiel to seize more than half a million ballots. Notably, Bianco endorsed Kiel while the latter campaigned to serve on the bench in 2022. In return, Kiel openly praised Bianco at the time.
The warrant had been sealed until Wednesday, when another Superior Court judge issued an order to unseal it following a request made by the San Francisco Chronicle and other news outlets.