California’s Supreme Court justices signaled deep doubts Monday about the legal footing Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco relied on when his deputies seized more than 650,000 ballots from the county’s election office back in March.
During two separate hearings held in downtown San Francisco, Bianco’s attorney, Bradley Hertz, told the court that local sheriffs have authority to take possession of ballots once they secure a warrant — regardless of what state election law says about how recounts, investigations and challenges are supposed to unfold. In the second case, Hertz went further, arguing that California’s attorney general has no real authority to direct a county sheriff’s actions.
The ballots were seized as part of Bianco’s inquiry into supposed voter fraud tied to the state’s November special election on redistricting, after activists claimed the vote count had been shorted. Riverside’s registrar of voters has repeatedly said those suspicions stemmed from a misreading of preliminary tally figures, not any actual irregularity.
The seizure thrust Bianco into the national spotlight at a moment when he was running an unsuccessful campaign for governor, and it came amid President Donald Trump’s continued push to cast doubt on U.S. elections and centralize control over how they’re run. Two separate lawsuits challenging Bianco’s actions arrived before the state’s high court Monday.
Following the first hearing, attorneys and voting-rights advocates who sued the sheriff expressed confidence in how the arguments had gone.
“This case is going to send a message around the country — that our election ballots are the voters’ ballots, to be protected at all costs,” said Chad Dunn of the UCLA Voting Rights Project, who argued against Bianco. “We couldn’t be more satisfied with how the hearing went today.”
Bianco, addressing reporters outside the courthouse, said he still expects the justices to side with him. He added that if ordered to return the ballots, he would comply — but made clear his department’s investigation would continue regardless.
“I would expect that that’s what every Californian should expect,” he said.
A ruling from the court could take months.
One Justice Calls Bianco’s Position “Bizarre”
The first case was brought by a group of Riverside County voters, including two local Democratic officials, who argue state election law spells out precisely how ballots must be handled in disputed elections — and that Bianco’s actions didn’t come close to following that process.
Dunn told the justices that California law lays out a clear system: recounts must be public, transparent, run by properly trained and sworn officials, and initiated only by a district attorney, county board of supervisors or the secretary of state. What state law does not allow, he said, is officers hauling ballots into a back room, comparing it to “trying to assemble a vote-counting airplane while they’re flying it.”
Dunn’s argument rested largely on a specific provision of the state election code stating that ballots subject to a recount or criminal investigation may “in no event” be removed from the custody of election officials.
Hertz countered that because Bianco had obtained a warrant — ultimately three, all signed by Riverside County Superior Court Judge Jay Kiel, a political ally of the sheriff — the case falls instead under the penal code, which he argued supersedes election law in this context.
Justice Kelli Evans appeared unconvinced, noting the plain language of the statute. “So it’s ‘in some event,’ despite the fact that it says ‘in no event’?” she asked pointedly.
Hertz also contended that the election code cited by Dunn applies only once a criminal prosecution is underway, not during a preliminary investigation like Bianco’s. Justice Goodwin Liu pushed back, noting that such logic would mean a sheriff could seize ballots during an investigation only to be forced to return them the moment prosecution began. “That seems bizarre,” Liu said.
Who Answers to Whom?
Bianco’s position fared no better in the second case, which centers on whether the sheriff was obligated to follow directives issued by the state attorney general.
Attorney General Rob Bonta had ordered Bianco in late February to hold off on executing the warrants. Bianco proceeded anyway. Bonta then instructed him not to take any further action with the ballots already in his custody, but Bianco’s office began counting them regardless, stopping only after the state Supreme Court intervened in April.
California Solicitor General Sam Harbourt argued that Bianco simply lacked the authority to defy those orders. The state constitution grants the attorney general “direct supervision” over county sheriffs, a power reinforced by the Legislature — even if past attorneys general have rarely exercised it so forcefully for political reasons.
Hertz offered a different interpretation, suggesting the attorney general’s role functions more like an “elder statesman” — someone who can offer guidance or step in during clear inaction, but who otherwise cannot compel a sheriff’s conduct. He conceded the reading might strike some as “counterintuitive.”
The justices weren’t buying that characterization either. “It’s more than counterintuitive,” said Justice Joshua Groban, noting that phrases like “direct supervision” carry a commonly understood meaning. He offered a hypothetical: a new manager telling an employee, “I’m your new supervisor, but funny thing — I don’t have any control over your actions.”
The exchange seemed to call into question not just Bianco’s specific legal theory, but the broader “constitutional sheriff” ideology he has been linked to — a movement whose adherents believe elected sheriffs may disregard laws they personally view as unconstitutional and hold near-absolute authority within their counties.
Why This Case Matters Heading Into 2026
Bianco’s actions were never going to change the outcome of the November special election, which passed in Riverside County by roughly 80,000 votes. But voting-rights advocates see the dispute as a significant test case ahead of the 2026 midterms.
President Trump has spent years making unproven claims of election fraud to erode public trust in results he disputes. This year, that effort has extended to seizing old ballots and election records from officials in Fulton County, Georgia, and Maricopa County, Arizona, along with requests for voter roll data from nearly every state.
At the post-hearing press conference, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra — an adviser to the UCLA Voting Rights Project — connected the Riverside case to Trump’s push for a national voter ID mandate and to Proposition 39, a similar measure on California’s ballot this November.
“The assault on elections, the assault on voters’ rights, is real, it’s imminent,” Becerra said.
Supporters of both lawsuits argue the court must order Bianco to return the ballots to prevent other Trump-aligned local officials from attempting similar interventions in future elections.
Justices Groban and Leondra Kruger pressed Hertz on whether his legal theory would allow a sheriff to seize ballots even while voting was still underway. Hertz responded that ballots are subject to additional safeguards close to Election Day — though when pressed for specifics, he acknowledged he could not name them. “I don’t have them handy,” he admitted.
Original source: CalMatters
