New lawsuit aims to save Riverside County ballots from destruction no matter how state Supreme Court rules on Bianco seizure
RIVERSIDE, Calif. (KESQ) A nonprofit election group has filed a lawsuit against Riverside County Registrar of Voters Art Tinoco and the county, asking a judge to block the destruction of records from the November 2024 general election and the November 2025 Proposition 50 special election and to order the registrar to explain ballot-accounting discrepancies the group says have never been resolved.
News Channel 3 obtained copies of the verified petition for writ of mandate, filed in Riverside County Superior Court by Election Accountability Project, Inc., along with an ex parte application for a temporary restraining order.
The application is noticed for a hearing Wednesday at 8:30 a.m.
The filing is separate from the two cases argued before the California Supreme Court on Monday over Sheriff Chad Bianco's seizure of roughly 650,000 ballots from the 2025 special election but it is connected to them. The petition says the 2025 ballots exist today only because of the high court's April 8 order requiring the seized materials to be preserved, and warns those materials could face prompt destruction under state law once those cases end, no matter how the justices rule.
The lawsuit centers on two audits by the Riverside Election Integrity Team, the citizens group whose claims helped prompt Bianco's investigation.
The group's 2024 audit reported 959,098 ballots counted against 925,210 ballots it could account for as received and valid a difference of 33,888. Its audit of the 2025 special election reported 657,322 ballots counted against 611,426 a difference of 45,896.
County officials have forcefully disputed those figures. In a lengthy Feb. 10 presentation to the Board of Supervisors, Tinoco said the group relied on incomplete data and raw, handwritten field forms prone to human error documents election officials do not use to determine vote counts. The actual variance in the 2025 election, according to the county's election management system, was 103 ballots. Attorney General Rob Bonta's office has said the discrepancies were explained by election officials, and said Sunday it has seen no evidence of election crimes that would support the sheriff's warrants in the six months since it intervened.
The new petition asks the court to order the registrar to perform or demonstrate the ballot reconciliation required by California Elections Code section 15302, arguing a valid reconciliation must account for conflicting physical records ballot statements, collection forms and mail-intake sheets rather than relying on the vote-counting system's own totals.
"This action does not seek to overturn, decertify, or otherwise alter the result of any past election," the filing reads.
The group says it is not alleging fraud, illegal voting or intentional misconduct at this point, and acknowledges the discrepancies could have an innocent explanation.
The timing driving the emergency request is a pair of destruction deadlines.
Federal and state law require records from elections with federal candidates to be kept 22 months a window closing for the 2024 election on Sept. 5.
Because no candidates appeared on the 2025 special election ballot, its records fell under a six-month retention period, which expired in May.
The petition argues only the Supreme Court's interim orders now stand between those materials and destruction.
The proposed restraining order would bar the county from destroying records from either election and would require any remaining sealed ballot packages to stay sealed, unopened and in official custody at least until a follow-up hearing. It would also require the county to produce a sworn inventory of preserved records within 10 days.
This is a developing story, stick with KESQ News Channel 3 for additional updates.
