California sheriff who seized ballots says his recount plan is on hold — but has grabbed even more election records

With two legal challenges moving through California courts, a sheriff and Republican candidate for governor who seized 650,000 ballots cast in last year’s redistricting referendum has conceded that his mission to recount the votes is temporarily on pause.

But that doesn’t make his attack on free and fair elections any less alarming.

A court filing from last Thursday alleges that Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco seized even more ballots last week, and another local official with a history of making election fraud allegations had a hand in efforts to challenge the vote.

Earlier this month, Bianco seized the ballots and hastily began his own recount based on reports of a large discrepancy between ballots cast and ballots counted. On March 24, he seized an additional 426 boxes of ballot materials, according to a petition from the California Attorney General’s office.

County officials have publicly explained that the alleged discrepancy likely results from a volunteer group’s misunderstanding of how votes are tabulated. 

But the volunteers apparently weren’t just going it alone. According to the Los Angeles Times, Shasta County Registrar of Voters Clint Curtis, an outspoken elections skeptic, traveled to Riverside County to work with the group behind the vote discrepancy allegations.

Curtis’ involvement emphasizes the role that anti-voting conspiracy theories likely played in the volunteer group’s allegations. Democracy Docket previously reported that Bianco himself had pushed extreme claims of election fraud in social media posts.

The link between conspiracy theories and ballot seizures is no surprise. Bianco took custody of the ballots just weeks after the FBI seized ballots in Georgia and subpoenaed election materials in Arizona. Both FBI actions were based on debunked conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential vote that President Donald Trump has pushed as he tries to relitigate his loss to Joe Biden. 

Now, Bianco is facing accusations of violating state law by seizing ballots that cannot legally be removed from the custody of local election officials.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) swiftly filed a lawsuit to stop Bianco, blasting the sheriff for attempting to conduct an “amateur and dubious” recount after obtaining criminal search warrants that “failed to meet even the most basic constitutional and statutory standards” and did not allege the commission of a crime. 

According to Bianco, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Jay Kiel issued the warrants, but required the sheriff’s office to restart the recount under the supervision of a court-appointed special master. 

In the latest development, Bianco and his attorney confirmed that the court is pausing the recount proceedings while Bonta’s legal challenge proceeds. 

Bianco is being represented by private counsel, possibly signaling that the county does not fully support his investigation.

“The special master has not yet been appointed by the court,” his attorney, Robert Tyler, said in an email to a local TV news channel. “However, because of the filing of the petition in Riverside Superior Court, the court will not designate the special master until the civil lawsuit filed by the attorney general is resolved.” 

“We are on hold because of the politically motivated lawsuits and court filings,” Bianco confirmed separately to another TV channel. 

Riverside County Superior Court Judge Dorothy McLaughlin held a procedural hearing Monday on Bonta’s petition to stop Bianco’s recount. 

Four Riverside County voters represented by the UCLA Voting Rights Project have filed a separate lawsuit with the California Supreme Court seeking the return of the seized ballots. They argue Bianco violated state election laws by removing them from the custody of local election officials. The voters also named the county voter registrar as a defendant, accusing him of facilitating the transfer of ballots into Bianco’s custody “without exhausting legal remedies against the warrants.”