California sheriff broke election law by seizing ballots, state Supreme Court rules

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco broke the law and created “a substantial risk to election integrity”  when he seized more than 650,000 ballots California’s Supreme Court ruled on Thursday morning.

The justices ruled unanimously that Bianco must return the ballots to the county’s top election administrator and “refrain from further handling” them. In a second ruling, the court also held that Bianco broke the law when he ignored directives from the state’s attorney general to hold off on his plans to execute a search warrant to seize the ballots last March.

Bianco’s argument “overlooks that allowing law enforcement unfettered access to ballots, or the ability to handle and count them in secret based on unregulated protocols, itself creates a substantial risk to election integrity,” Guerrero wrote. 

“There is no need to introduce this risk because the Elections Code already contains its own comprehensive procedures for recounting and examining ballots, including for law enforcement purposes, without exposing them to alteration or tampering — unlike the unlawful seizure that occurred here,” the ruling read.

The twin courtroom defeats for the conservative lawman who unsuccessfully ran for governor as a Republican earlier this year represents both a legal and moral victory for voting rights advocates who warned that Bianco’s ballot seizure could serve as a playbook for other right-wing law enforcement officers hoping to upset the outcome of the coming midterm elections.

Democrats are on alert for the November election because of President Donald Trump’s efforts to restrict mail-in voting nationwide, as well as his administration’s push to investigate the 2020 race he lost to Joe Biden. Since Tump’s return to the White House, the president has directed federal law enforcement to seize 2020 election records from officials in Georgia and Arizona, two swing states.

“Whether it’s a sheriff in Riverside or the President of the United States, we won’t let anyone take away Californians’ voice in our democracy,” Attorney General Rob Bonta said at a news conference shortly after the court released its rulings. “Come November, we’re ready for whatever comes our way.”

Bianco went before the California Supreme Court in August to argue that a search warrant obtained by a politically friendly judge was sufficient justification to take the ballots. That’s despite a state law prohibiting the removal of ballots, contested or otherwise, from election officials. 

In the second case, Bianco argued that Bonta overstepped his authority in directing him to hold off on executing the warrant. 

The justices expressed varying degrees of skepticism about both arguments last month, describing them as “bizarre” and “more than counterintuitive.” 

In their rulings on Thursday, the justices adopted a similarly withering tone.

“In short, Bianco’s arguments fail to persuade us that we should interpret (California election law) in a manner inconsistent with its plain text, which mandates that voted ballots remain in the custody of elections officials,” wrote Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero. 

Bianco seized the ballots after the November 2025 special election, in which a majority of voters agreed to redraw the state’s political boundaries to favor Democrats. As CalMatters reported shortly after the raid, he did so at the urging of members of the “constitutional sheriff” movement and other local activists who pointed to apparent discrepancies in local election results.

Riverside’s registrar of voters, the county’s top election administrator, has said those claims were based on a misinterpretation of preliminary vote count data.

Secretary of State Shirley Weber argued in a friend-of-the-court brief that California law explicitly dictates that ballots must remain in the custody of an elections official. 

“Sheriff Bianco violated (California election law’s) clear mandate when he removed voted ballots from the custody of the Riverside County Registrar of Voters,” Weber said in the brief. “For that reason alone, the court should issue an order compelling the return of those ballots and related materials to the proper custodian dictated by the elections code.

California Democratic leaders passed two new laws after Bianco’s office seized the ballots. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed them last week. One makes it a felony to seize — or order the seizure of — ballots, election records or voting machines before election results are certified. The other expands on existing state election laws and makes it illegal to take election materials or voting machines from elections officials. 

With the ruling today, Bianco will be required to give the ballots back to the registrar. But the matter may not be settled yet. In August, Bianco said his office would continue its investigation into the 2025 election, no matter the court’s ruling. 

The ruling also helped settle a rarely contested but politically important question at the heart of California’s constitutional order: Do local law enforcement leaders answer to the state attorney general? 

The California constitution grants the attorney general “direct supervision” over sheriffs. Past attorneys general have rarely exercised such supervision and when they have it hasn’t been challenged. Bianco argued that “supervision” in this case amounts to more of an advisory role. 

In the second of two rulings today, the court disagreed, firmly putting the debate to bed. 

“(Bianco’s) arguments all boil down to the unsustainable view that the state’s chief law enforcement officer … must remain a mere bystander to an unprecedented sheriff’s investigation of undeniable statewide significance,” the court ruled. “As we have explained, that is not the case.”

This is a breaking news story that will be updated

CalMatters reporter Lynn La contributed to this story.