by WorldTribune Staff, August 25, 2026 Non-AI Real World News
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco on Monday said he will not return the approximately 650,000 ballots he seized from the November 2025 special election on redistricting, reiterating that he has a legal obligation to investigate the ballots after receiving a complaint.
The California Supreme Court heard arguments Monday from Bianco’s lawyers and from state Attorney General Rob Bonta who has ordered Bianco to return the ballots.
“I did this, and this was legal,” Bianco told reporters. “I went a different route. They are legal. Both routes are legal. It’s just their side doesn’t like the route I chose.”
Proposition 50, a redistricting measure which is expected to give Democrats at least five additional congressional seats, was approved by votes in the 2025 special election.
Bianco appeared to question whether the official count was valid.
“How strange, that now we have evidence that the machines counted something different than the ballots that we have, and an Attorney General runs in to stop that investigation so that we’ll never know.”
Bonta told reporters outside the courthouse Monday: “This is a sheriff that – despite the clear language in the California constitution, and in California government code, providing me direct supervision, authority over him – failed to comply with it.”
Bianco challenged Bonta’s interpretation of California code: “If you take it word for word, in that context, it means that he has direct authority that if I’m not doing my job he can order me to do it and if I don’t do it he can do it for me. But he cannot stop an investigation.”
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