UCLA's Voting Rights Project filed a lawsuit to stop Riverside County's investigation into the Prop 50 special election, arguing that Sheriff Chad Bianco violated state law when he ordered his deputies to seize more than 600,000 ballots and recount them.
"What's happened here in Riverside County is the ballots have been removed from the trained elections staff," said Chad Dunn, director of litigation of UCLA's Voting Rights Project. "Whoever does the count, if it's done in secret, at least some group of people are not going to believe it."
Bianco, who is running for governor, seized more than 611,000 ballots from the Prop 50 special election in which voters approved a redistricting measure that shifted five of California's Republican U.S. House seats to be more favorable to Democrats in the midterm elections this year. Bianco claimed his agency was investigating a complaint from a local group alleging a possible discrepancy in which about 45,800 more votes were reported to California's Secretary of State. He described the probe as a "fact-finding mission."
"The Sheriff has not identified any particular crime that may have been committed by anyone — a necessary predicate to obtain a criminal search warrant," California Attorney General Rob Bonta's Office said in a statement. "In his own words, this investigation is 'just as much to prove the election is accurate as it is to show otherwise.' There is a robust civil process, overseen by state and local elections officials, to request a recount or challenge the results of an election. That process has not been invoked here."
County elections officials also disputed Bianco's claim, saying the machine count and the final count submitted to the state differed by about 100 votes.
Bonta tried to shut down Bianco's investigation shortly after he seized the ballots. Bonta's office filed a lawsuit with an appellate court, which was ultimately denied "based solely on where we filed the case and is not a ruling on the underlying of the petition," according to the attorney general. Bonta plans to refile the case in state court.
"There are many concerns with the attorney general wanting to stop this investigation because they could not give me a legal justification to stop a lawful investigation that's been approved and ordered by a judge," Bianco said on March 20. "The outrage that an investigation was happening was extremely concerning to me."
CBS LA reached out to Bianco for an interview. His office said he was reviewing our request but CBS LA did not receive a response before publishing this story.
Bianco has repeated President Trump's claims about election fraud, saying that "there was fraud" during the 2020 election during a podcast appearance in October 2025.
"In the 2020 election, we know there was fraud," Bianco said. "We absolutely know there was fraud. He said it all the time. And, mail-in ballots are purposely designed for fraud."
The League of Women Voters said the recounts should be conducted by nonpartisan elections officials to maintain trust with voters.
"What's happening here mirrors a strategy that we are unfortunately seeing playing out across the country and dates back to 2020, undermining trust in elections and ultimately discouraging participation, " said Jenny Farrell, executive director of the California League of Women Voters.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate and former state attorney general Xavier Becerra is part of UCLA's Voting Rights Project.