What happened to Riverside County’s seized 2025 ballots?
THOUSAND PALMS, Calif. (KESQ) Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco stepped back into the public spotlight Tuesday for the first time since ending his run for governor, endorsing Republican Michael Gates for attorney general and leveled attacks on the man Gates hopes to unseat - Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta.
In a one-on-one interview with News Channel 3, Bianco called Bonta "an absolute complete fraud that is abusing the power of his office" and said the attorney general "is doing everything he can to stop a lawful investigation." He accused Bonta of fearing what a full ballot count would show: "He doesn't want me to find out how many ballots we really have."
"He's an embarrassment to me. He's an embarrassment to law enforcement. And he always has been," Bianco said, calling the court fight "a political disaster caused by Bonta."
At the center of it is the sheriff's investigation into the 2025 Proposition 50 special election.
The Riverside County Sheriff's Department told News Channel 3 it is in possession of all the ballots cast in that election.
On June 24, the Sheriff's Office told News Channel 3, "Yes, the Sheriff's Office still has possession of the 2025 ballots."
On June 25, it said by email: "The Riverside Sheriff's Office has not received reports of election fraud or irregularities, nor are there any active investigations, related to the June 2, 2026, election."
That is notable because the Riverside Election Integrity Team the same group whose claims sparked Bianco's original probe was at Tuesday's Riverside County Board of Supervisors meeting raising new questions about the count of votes in the June 2026 primary.
Bianco launched his investigation in February after REIT alleged a 45,800-vote discrepancy between the county's handwritten ballot logs and the certified total.
Registrar of Voters Art Tinoco said those intake logs were estimates and the real gap was just 103 votes a fraction of a percent that he attributed to human error. Bonta sued, arguing a sheriff has no authority to seize ballots or run a recount.
The California Supreme Court stayed the investigation on April 8, and that stay is still in effect. On May 27, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed SB 73, which makes knowingly taking a package of voted ballots from elections officials a crime punishable by up to three years in prison, a $1,000 fine, or both.
The dispute is now fully briefed at the state Supreme Court in two related cases, S295901 and S295866. No oral argument has been scheduled, though a June clerk letter raised the possibility of a special session in August.
Bianco pointed to a California State Sheriffs' Association amicus brief as proof law enforcement backs him. Asked what the group said, he replied: "Of course they were. It's a criminal investigation. Every single law enforcement officer should be in support of that."
Gates, a former Huntington Beach city attorney, pledged to let the probe finish.
"I supported the investigation from day one. And when I'm attorney general, I am going to make sure that Chad Bianco, Sheriff Chad Bianco can investigate and finish his investigation," he said. "If you shut down investigations and you prevent the truth from coming out, then the public is left with little confidence in our processes, in our systems."
At the news conference, Gates also added, "I think Rob Bonta is playing politics with this whole thing."
Bonta has cast Bianco as a "rogue Sheriff" who created a "constitutional emergency," and has said "what the Sheriff says and what he does are often two different things."
News Channel 3 has reached out to Attorney General Bonta's team for comment on the case and on whether he will debate Gates before the November election, and has requested an on-camera interview. News Channel 3 has made multiple previous requests to interview the attorney general on this case.
We will update this story with any response.
