Local & Community
California AG Moves to Halt Bianco's Voter Fraud Investigation in Court
California Attorney General Rob Bonta took his fight against Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco to the Court of Appeals Tuesday, filing an emergency writ to stop Bianco's ongoing investigation into alleged irregularities in the November 2025 special election on Proposition 50.
Bianco launched the investigation after a local group, the Riverside Election Integrity Team, claimed more than 611,000 ballots were cast in that election while more than 657,000 were counted, a gap of roughly 45,000 votes. County officials have said that discrepancy comes from a misunderstanding of how ballots are processed and reported.
In a statement Tuesday, Bonta said his office had already directed the Sheriff's Department to pause its investigation on multiple occasions, but that Bianco had refused. "He has flagrantly ignored our directives and recently obtained a warrant in direct defiance of our instructions," Bonta wrote, referring to a search warrant a Riverside Superior Court judge approved on March 19. Bonta argues the warrant was improper because the sheriff never identified a specific crime that may have been committed, which he called "a necessary predicate to obtain a criminal search warrant."
Bonta called the inquiry "a fishing expedition meant to sow distrust and undermine public confidence in our elections," and asked the court to immediately stay both the investigation and the March 19 warrant.
Bianco fired back Monday night in a video posted to social media, questioning why Bonta would want the count stopped at all. "Why in the world would Rob Bonta want that count stopped," Bianco said, "unless he was afraid of what that count would uncover." The sheriff also pushed back on characterizations of the ballot discrepancy, saying the investigation is "simply counting the total ballots and comparing that total with the number of votes reported by the Dominion machines."
Bonta's office noted that the Secretary of State is willing to review Bianco's allegations separately through a civil process, though the sheriff has not pursued that route. The Court of Appeals has not yet issued a ruling on the emergency writ.
By: NBC Palm Springs
March 24, 2026
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