GOP California governor candidate seizes over 500,000 ballots in disputed election probe | EUROtoday

A California sheriff, who can be a gubernatorial candidate, has seized greater than half one million ballots from a November particular election, citing an investigation into an alleged poll rely discrepancy.

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican, took possession of the ballots from county election officers, who’ve publicly disputed his claims.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, condemned Bianco’s actions as unprecedented, suggesting they’re meant to undermine public belief within the electoral course of.

Sheriff Bianco held a information convention on Friday, stating his workplace initiated the probe following a grievance from a neighborhood residents group relating to the poll rely from a November 2025 particular election centered on redistricting.

In that particular election, voters accredited a measure to redraw congressional district strains, a transfer designed to profit Democrats within the upcoming midterm election. The measure handed inside the county by a major margin of over 80,000 votes.

Bianco seized ballots in Riverside County, the inland California county of two.5 million folks the place he has twice been elected sheriff. He referred to as the hassle “a fact-finding mission.”

“This investigation is simple: Physically count the ballots and compare that result with the total votes reported,” he stated Friday.

Bianco is one in every of two distinguished Republicans operating for governor in a crowded June major that features greater than half a dozen Democrats. California runs a top-two major system that places all candidates on the identical poll, no matter celebration, and sends the 2 candidates who get probably the most voters onto the November normal election.

Leading California Democrats are nervous that their celebration has so many candidates, they threat splitting the vote and sending Bianco and Steve Hilton, one other prime Republican, onto the final election. That could be a surprising consequence within the closely Democratic state.

Bianco stated the investigation had “absolutely nothing to do” together with his marketing campaign for governor.

“I have a duty to investigate alleged crime in Riverside County,” he stated.

The effort got here as President Donald Trump has repeatedly disputed the outcomes of the 2020 election, citing unsubstantiated situations of fraud. His administration just lately seized ballots and different paperwork from an election workplace in Georgia. Some Republicans have mirrored Trump’s rhetoric on voting of their states.

Bonta has repeatedly despatched letters to Bianco’s workplace during the last two months saying his workers will not be certified to conduct a recount. In one of many letters, Bonta wrote that the poll seizure was “unacceptable” and “sets a dangerous precedent and will only sow distrust in our elections.”

The letters stated Bianco seized almost 1,000 containers of ballots and elections supplies from the county’s elections workplace with a warrant in February. At subject, Bianco stated, is a discrepancy a citizen group reported between the handwritten poll consumption logs and the variety of votes reported to the state.

Bianco stated the alleged discrepancy amounted to about 45,800 votes — a distinction elections officers have refuted at county conferences, saying the machine rely and the ultimate rely submitted to the state differed by about 100 votes. They argue the handwritten rolls, which weren’t relied on to examine the rely, have been being saved by momentary elections staff who had labored lengthy days and will have made errors.

Bianco stated Friday that the rely had began and stopped, however would now resume below the supervision of a particular grasp appointed by a decide.