The California Supreme Court on Thursday ruled against Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco’s massive election fraud investigation and sided with the state’s far-left attorney general.
Earlier this year, the California Supreme Court ordered Sheriff Chad Bianco to pause his massive election fraud investigation and preserve the 650,000 ballots he seized.
A state appellate court previously rejected California Democrat Attorney General Rob Bonta’s emergency writ to halt Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco’s bombshell investigation into 45,000 extra votes mysteriously counted in the November 2025 special election.
Chad Bianco, who ran for California governor as a Republican, previously moved to seize approximately 650,000 ballots and initiate a recount after a citizens’ group reported significant discrepancies, according to CalMatters.
Bianco revealed that a team of 10 investigators had already begun counting ballots before being ordered to halt their work, as part of an ongoing election investigation, The Sun reported.
According to Bianco, the team’s initial progress suggested that counting the approximately 611,000 ballots would take about five days to complete. However, the effort was paused before a full review could be conducted.
Bianco previously paused his investigation because of the onslaught of legal issues.
California Attorney General Bonta slammed Sheriff Bianco and celebrated the State Supreme Court’s order earlier this year.
“What the Sheriff says and what he does are often two different things,” Bonta said in a statement.
“Today’s decision by the California Supreme Court reins in the destabilizing actions of a rogue Sheriff, prohibiting him from continuing this investigation while our litigation continues,” Bonta said in April.
On Thursday, the California Supreme Court, stacked with Democrats, ruled against Bianco.
The Orange County Register reported:
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco’s seizure of more than 650,000 ballots as part of a criminal investigation was unlawful, according to a California Supreme Court opinion issued Thursday, Sept. 24.
The court also found that California Attorney General Rob Bonta was within his rights under the state constitution to order the sheriff to halt the investigation and order Bianco to comply with Bonta’s directives.
Before the court were two cases. One, filed by Bonta, sought to halt Bianco’s probe. The other, filed by the UCLA Voting Rights Project, demanded the sheriff return the confiscated ballots to the registrar.
The ballots remained in the sheriff’s custody as of Wednesday afternoon, Sept. 23, according to Elizabeth Florer, spokesperson for Riverside County’s elections office.
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