Court Orders Release of Warrants Used by Riverside Sheriff to Seize 650,000 Ballots in Bogus Fraud Probe

The secret warrants that allowed a Trump-supporting California sheriff to seize more than 650,000 ballots in a contested election fraud investigation will finally see daylight.

Riverside County Superior Court Judge Gail O'Rane ordered the warrants unsealed on Tuesday after multiple media organizations, including the Los Angeles Times, sued for access to the documents. The warrants have been kept secret despite growing legal challenges to Sheriff Chad Bianco's controversial investigation, which officials across the state have called baseless.

The three search warrants, signed by a county judge at Bianco's request, authorized deputies to seize approximately 1,400 boxes of ballots in February and March. Those boxes are estimated to contain 650,000 ballots from the November 2025 special election on Proposition 50, which temporarily redrawed congressional districts to counter Republican gerrymandering in other states.

Attorney General Found "Deficiencies" in Warrants

California Attorney General Rob Bonta reviewed the warrants after they were issued and found serious problems. According to court filings, "the affidavits did not identify any specific felony offense the sheriff had probable cause to believe had been committed or that a particular person had committed a felony."

That is a stunning admission. Search warrants require probable cause that a specific crime has been committed. Bonta's office concluded the warrants failed that basic legal threshold and asked Bianco to halt the investigation.

Bianco ignored the request and seized the ballots anyway.

The sheriff's investigation was sparked by claims from a local citizens group that alleged the county's vote tally was inflated by more than 45,000 votes. But Riverside County Registrar of Voters Art Tinoco publicly dismantled those allegations in a detailed presentation, explaining they were based on a misunderstanding of raw, unprocessed election data.

The actual discrepancy? 103 votes out of more than 640,000 cast. That is a variance of 0.016 percent, well within normal margins.

Supreme Court Steps In

As legal challenges mounted, Bianco announced he was suspending the investigation. But California's attorney general did not trust that claim. "What the sheriff says and what he does are often two different things," Bonta said in court filings.

The California Supreme Court agreed. On Wednesday, the court granted Bonta's request for a formal stay, ordering all parties to "pause the investigation into the November 2025 special election and preserve all seized items."

Bonta called the ruling "a necessary and appropriate response to what is clearly an unprecedented situation" and accused Bianco of being a "rogue sheriff" whose actions are "destabilizing."

The UCLA Voting Rights Project has also petitioned the state Supreme Court, arguing that state law requires all ballots to remain in the custody of the county registrar of voters, not a sheriff conducting a politically motivated investigation.

A Sheriff Running for Governor

Bianco is not just any local law enforcement official. He is a fervent Trump supporter and a Republican candidate for California governor. His ballot seizure investigation has drawn national attention from election deniers and conspiracy theorists who continue to push debunked claims of widespread voter fraud.

Ironically, Trump this week endorsed Bianco's GOP primary opponent, conservative commentator Steve Hilton, undercutting Bianco's attempts to position himself as the MAGA candidate in the race.

Voter fraud remains exceedingly rare in the United States. Study after study has found that allegations of widespread fraud are unfounded. Bianco's investigation fits a familiar pattern: election deniers seize on normal data discrepancies or misunderstand vote-counting procedures, then claim fraud without evidence.

Ballots Set to Be Destroyed in May

Under California law, election materials must be kept sealed for 22 months for federal elections and six months for other contests. The Proposition 50 election took place on November 4, 2025, meaning the ballots are scheduled to be destroyed in May 2026.

The unsealed warrants, once released, will provide the first public look at what evidence, if any, Bianco presented to justify seizing hundreds of thousands of ballots. Given the attorney general's assessment that the warrants lacked probable cause of any specific crime, those documents are likely to raise more questions than they answer.

Riverside County officials had previously fought to keep the warrants secret, citing an ongoing investigation. But Bianco himself supported unsealing them, according to Judge O'Rane's order. Whether that reflects confidence in his case or a recognition that the documents will eventually become public regardless remains unclear.

What is clear is that a sheriff running for governor used the power of his office to seize ballots based on fraud claims that election officials say are false. The warrants that authorized that seizure were found deficient by the state's top law enforcement officer. And now, finally, the public will get to see what justification, if any, existed for one of the most aggressive election investigations in recent California history.