Riverside Sheriff Seizes Ballots in Redistricting Probe
Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco seized roughly 500,000–650,000 ballots tied to a November 2025 redistricting vote, prompting rebukes from Attorney General Rob Bonta and a judge-appointed special master to oversee a hand count.
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Overview
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said he seized roughly 500,000 to 650,000 ballots from county election officials as part of an investigation into a November 2025 special election.
The action stems from a citizen group's allegation that handwritten ballot intake logs differed from certified totals in the November 2025 vote on Proposition 50, which county voters approved by more than 80,000 votes.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta has called Bianco's investigation unprecedented and wrote letters saying affidavits may have misled the judge who signed the warrants, his office said.
Riverside Registrar Art Tinoco and county election officials said the certified machine count differed from tabulator totals by 103 ballots, a 0.016% error rate, and described the handwritten logs as imprecise.
A judge appointed a special master after warrants were served in February, and Bianco said the hand count will proceed under that supervision.
Analysis
Center-leaning sources frame the seizure as politicized and concerning for election trust. Through contextual links to 2020 denialism and a Georgia seizure, emphasis on officials disputing the sheriff’s account, and foregrounding the attorney general’s warning, reporting privileges skepticism and public-order risk over the sheriff’s investigatory rationale.
FAQ
Proposition 50 was a November 2025 special election measure that temporarily redrew California’s congressional districts to favor Democrats in response to partisan redistricting in Republican states like Texas.[1]
A citizen group alleged that handwritten ballot intake logs showed about 611,000 votes cast, while certified machine counts reported over 657,000 ballots, a difference of around 45,000 votes.[1]
Riverside Registrar Art Tinoco stated the certified machine count differed from tabulator totals by only 103 ballots (0.016% error rate), attributing the citizen group's claim to misinterpretation of unprocessed raw data.[1]
Bonta called the probe unprecedented in scope and scale, based on unfounded allegations already refuted by election officials, and warned it sets a dangerous precedent sowing distrust in elections.
A Riverside superior court judge appointed a special master to supervise the sheriff's investigators as they conduct the hand count of the seized ballots.[1]
