The California Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Sept. 24 that Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco illegally seized more than half a million voted ballots from a special election last year that approved a redistricting ballot question.
Voters easily approved Proposition 50 on Nov. 4, 2025, which authorized a Legislature-drawn congressional map favorable to Democrats for 2026 through 2030.
Bianco ran as a Republican candidate in this year’s gubernatorial primary election, but lost the primary in June.
Bianco began an investigation after a local group, the Riverside Election Integrity Team, compared handwritten voting precinct intake logs in his county with the certified count and alleged a gap of 45,896 votes. Bianco treated the complaint as a criminal case, and earlier this year obtained search warrants and seized about 650,000 voted ballots in around 1,000 boxes….