California Supreme Court temporarily stops Riverside County sheriff’s election investigation

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco’s investigation of election results in the county has been temporarily halted by the California Supreme Court.

In a Wednesday, April 8, ruling, the court stopped the probe for now in response to a request from Attorney General Rob Bonta. It also agreed to review the case.

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In the investigation, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department has seized more than 650,000 county ballots from November’s Proposition 50 election. Bianco, who is running as a Republican for governor, is investigating how the county processed ballots.

“The Riverside County Sheriff willfully defied my direct orders, seized 650,000 ballots, misused criminal investigatory tools, and created a constitutional emergency in the process,” Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a Wednesday, April 8, statement.

“What the Sheriff says and what he does are often two different things,” the statement said. “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.”

A Riverside County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday morning.

Related links

• Attorney general’s lawsuit against Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco put on fast track
• Media coalition seeks to unseal records in Riverside County sheriff’s election probe
• Riverside County Sheriff’s Department seizes more election materials in ballot investigation
• Lawsuits seek to stop Riverside County sheriff’s probe that seized 656,000 ballots
• Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco defends seizure of 656,000 ballots

Bianco’s probe began after a complaint by a watchdog group called the Riverside Election Integrity Team. The organization audited the election and said it discovered an approximately 45,000-vote gap between ballots cast and ballots counted in the county during the election.

Riverside County Registrar of Voters Art Tinoco, however, has disputed the group’s conclusions, saying the actual gap between ballots counted and ballots cast is 103 votes and within the acceptable margin of error set by the state secretary of state.