Riverside County Sheriff Seizes 650,000 Prop. 50 Ballots in Clash With California Election Officials

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a leading Republican candidate for California governor, says his office has seized more than 650,000 ballots from the November 2025 special election on Proposition 50 and will conduct its own physical recount, defying state election authorities who say he has no such power. Bianco launched a criminal investigation after the Riverside Election Integrity Team, a third‑party group, claimed it found roughly 45,000 'excess' votes, a claim Riverside’s registrar rejected as a misunderstanding of Election Day intake logs. California Secretary of State Shirley Weber warned that the sheriff and his deputies are not elections officials and accused him of acting on allegations that 'lack credible evidence' and risk undermining confidence in the vote, while Riverside elections chief Art Tinoco says the county’s final tally differed by only 0.16%—103 votes—from initial estimates. Bianco says Attorney General Rob Bonta sent multiple letters ordering him to stop the probe, which Bonta’s office characterizes as seeking the basis for the investigation, underscoring a sharp confrontation between state Democrats and a local law‑enforcement official aligned with GOP election‑integrity activists. Proposition 50, backed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and approved by voters, temporarily alters California’s congressional districts in a way designed to benefit Democrats, raising the stakes of any attempt by a partisan candidate‑sheriff to insert his office into ballot counting.