Riverside Sheriff's Years-Long Election Fraud Hunt Exposed: Warrants Show Conspiracy Theory Fueled Investigation

Sheriff's Investigation Predates Public Controversy by Years

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco didn't just wake up one morning and decide to seize 650,000 ballots from November's election. Court documents unsealed this week show his department has been investigating alleged election fraud since at least 2023 -- years before the current controversy erupted into a legal battle that reached the California Supreme Court.

Search warrants obtained by investigators reveal a pattern: The sheriff's department repeatedly sought voter data and election materials based on allegations from outside groups, even as the county's own election officials disputed the claims underlying those investigations.

The unsealed documents, released Tuesday following a court order prompted by a coalition of news organizations including this publication, show that investigators obtained search warrants for registrar data in both 2023 and 2024. Those earlier probes focused on alleged "double voter information" and "possible mail-in ballot fraud."

The Watchdog Group Behind the Investigation

The current investigation centers on claims made by the Riverside Election Integrity Team, led by Greg Langworthy. The group conducted its own audit of November's election and claimed to find a 45,000-vote gap between ballots cast and ballots counted in Riverside County.

County Registrar of Voters Art Tinoco has flatly rejected that conclusion. According to Tinoco, the actual discrepancy is 103 votes -- well within the acceptable margin of error set by California's Secretary of State.

That didn't stop Sheriff's Investigator Robert Castellanos from seeking a search warrant on February 9, one day before Tinoco presented his findings to the Board of Supervisors. In his warrant application, Castellanos wrote that he had been "in regular contact" with Langworthy "about various issues of potential election fraud."

The warrant sought "all ballots pertaining to the 2025 Special Election including but not limited to digital copies, physical copies, of ballots both counted and disqualified for any reason."

Earlier Investigations Based on Similar Claims

The February warrant wasn't the first time the sheriff's department went looking for election fraud in Riverside County. According to Castellanos' affidavit, a judge signed a search warrant in January 2023 "for information regarding double voter information" from the registrar's office.

Another warrant, signed in March 2024, "related to possible mail-in ballot fraud at the Riverside County Registrar of Voters," Castellanos wrote.

That 2024 investigation was prompted by claims from Yvette Anthony, who told investigators she had submitted public records requests "regarding elections in several counties." Anthony cited a supposed 35,784-vote gap between ballots mailed by the post office and ballots the registrar reported receiving for the June 2022 primary election.

Investigator J. Merrill wrote in that warrant application: "The large number of Vote By Mail ballots for this election does not seem to be close to what the (postal service) is reporting."

The warrant sought audit logs "to help prove or disprove voter fraud," according to Castellanos' account.

The Urgency Argument: Ballots Would Be Destroyed

In his February 9 warrant application, Castellanos invoked a 2022 memorandum from the California Secretary of State requiring election materials to be retained for six months and then destroyed. That meant Riverside County's Proposition 50 ballots would be destroyed in April 2026.

"Due to the timeframe regarding the ballots being destroyed and the large discrepancy between the numbers from (Langworthy's team) and the official (registrar's) count, I am requesting to seize and search the ballots from the 2025 Special Election," Castellanos wrote.

"I believe that in doing so it is the only way to prove or disprove and (sic) fraud."

The investigator sought a second warrant on February 23 after the registrar's office told him they would only release certain materials. Tinoco and an assistant said there were about 150 ballots of Proposition 50 election material, but "would only release the ballots from the 2025 Special Election and would not release any other material without an additional search warrant," Castellanos wrote.

The registrar was willing to turn over 13 pallets of material, but investigators wanted more.

Investigation Now on Hold After Supreme Court Intervention

The California Supreme Court halted Bianco's investigation on April 8 in response to a request from Attorney General Rob Bonta. The move came after weeks of escalating legal battles over the sheriff's seizure of hundreds of thousands of ballots.

Bianco, who is running for governor, has claimed the investigation is on hold "because of the politically motivated lawsuits and court filings."

A sheriff's department spokesperson said last week that the documents were initially sealed "to protect the integrity of the evidence" before serving the warrant, and that the department supported unsealing them.

The Pattern: Allegations Without Evidence

The unsealed warrants reveal a troubling pattern. In each case, investigators cite allegations from outside groups or individuals claiming to have found evidence of fraud. In each case, those allegations involve supposed discrepancies between different sets of numbers -- ballots mailed versus ballots received, ballots cast versus ballots counted.

And in each case, the county's election officials have disputed the underlying claims.

Castellanos wrote in a later warrant that "Mr. Langworthy reported that the last four elections have had similar discrepancies that were not explained by (registrar), which are consistent with our concerns in our earlier investigations."

But those "concerns" appear to be based on amateur audits by advocacy groups, not evidence of actual fraud. The fact that a sheriff's department spent years pursuing these claims -- and ultimately seized more than 650,000 ballots based on them -- raises serious questions about how law enforcement resources are being used to validate conspiracy theories about election integrity.

The documents were unsealed following a request from a coalition that included the California Newspapers Partnership, ABC News, CalMatters, CBS News, Fox Television Stations, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today, and The Riverside Record.

Media attorneys argued that the public's right to know about the investigation outweighed any reason to keep the warrants sealed. Riverside Superior Court Judge Gail O'Rane agreed.

Now the public can see exactly what prompted a sheriff running for governor to launch an investigation that would ultimately be shut down by the state's highest court: years of unsubstantiated allegations from election conspiracy theorists, and a law enforcement agency willing to treat those allegations as credible evidence of fraud.