Celebrate Court Ordering Sheriff to Return 650,000 Ballots

The California Supreme Court has ruled that Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco unlawfully seized approximately 650,000 ballots cast in the state’s November 2025 special election and ordered that the election materials be returned to county election officials.

Bianco’s department seized roughly 1,000 boxes of ballots and other election materials in March as part of an investigation into alleged discrepancies in Riverside County’s election records. Four county voters subsequently asked the state Supreme Court to order the ballots returned to the Riverside County Registrar of Voters.

The state’s highest court concluded that California election law did not permit the sheriff to take custody of the ballots, even as part of a criminal investigation. State law narrowly limits when voted ballots may be produced for inspection and requires them to remain in the physical custody of the responsible election official.

The court emphasized the importance of those chain-of-custody protections, holding that the law’s requirement that voted ballots remain with election officials applied to the materials seized by Bianco’s department. The court therefore directed that the ballots and other election materials be returned to the Riverside County Registrar of Voters.

Add your name to celebrate the California Supreme Court ruling requiring approximately 650,000 seized ballots to be returned to election officials and enforcing the state’s legal safeguards for the custody of cast ballots!

(Photo source: Jason Henry/Nexstar/Bloomberg)