The California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a Republican sheriff unlawfully seized 650,000 ballots while investigating baseless claims of voter fraud in last year’s special election on a redistricting measure.
In a unanimous ruling, the state’s high court found that Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco violated the law when he seized ballots from the Proposition 50 special election, in which California voters resoundingly agreed to redraw the state’s congressional districts.
Bianco, a Trump supporter who lost the gubernatorial primary race last year, had launched a criminal investigation based on claims from an activist group, the Riverside Election Integrity Team, that more ballots were counted than the votes cast. Local election officials debunked that claim.
He confiscated hundreds of thousands of ballots as part of the probe in February, and then another 426 boxes of election materials weeks later, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a lawsuit.
“We hold that the seizure of the ballots was unlawful,” Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero wrote in her opinion. “While allegations of election improprieties are a very serious matter, our Elections Code contains numerous established mechanisms for investigating and proving misconduct that do not compromise the integrity of voted ballots — contrary to the means employed here.”
The justices ordered Bianco to return the ballots to the county’s registrar of voters and “to refrain from further handling of the ballots except as necessary to comply with our order.”
Bianco’s attorney did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment on the ruling.
Bonta praised the court’s ruling in a statement, saying it brought “important clarity for our constitutional system in California.”
“Election fraud can and should be investigated. But misuse of criminal investigative tools — without any evidence that a crime was committed — needlessly undermines trust in our elections system and in law enforcement,” Bonta added.
Bianco’s investigation into claims of widespread voter fraud mirror efforts from the Trump administration to cast doubt on election security ahead of the midterms.
President Donald Trump and his allies have gone to extraordinary lengths to undermine public confidence in the election, claiming without evidence that the only way Democrats can possibly win is by cheating. He has floated federal control of elections, which are administered by state and local authorities, fueling fears that he will deploy federal law enforcement or the military to polling sites.
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