CA-GOV: California Supreme Court Orders Sheriff to Halt Election Investigation

The California Supreme Court ordered a local sheriff on Wednesday to halt an investigation into the 2025 election that prompted him to seize more than 650,000 ballots from a local election office.

The sheriff, Chad Bianco, a Republican from Riverside County and a candidate for governor, opened the probe into last year’s special election in late February after a group of election activists claimed that vote tallies did not match the number of ballots received. Local authorities swiftly debunked the report.

But Mr. Bianco continued to pursue his investigation, seizing more election materials in late March over the objections of the attorney general of California and the secretary of state, both of whom claimed Mr. Bianco’s efforts were based on unsubstantiated claims and risked undermining faith in elections.

In the election in question, Californians voted overwhelmingly to approve new boundaries for congressional districts. The aggressive gerrymander, devised to counter a similar effort by Texas Republicans, could help Democrats flip as many as five seats in this fall’s midterms. The Riverside County ballots that Sheriff Bianco seized, which were counted, would not have changed the statewide outcome.



https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/08/us/politics/california-supreme-court-orders-sheriff-to-halt-election-investigation.html