Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco has seized more than 650,000 ballots from a November 2025 special election, saying he is investigating a ballot count discrepancy reported by a local citizens group. Bianco, a Republican who is running for governor, announced the investigation at a news conference Friday.

The special election in question involved a redistricting measure that would redraw congressional district lines to favor Democrats in upcoming midterm elections. The measure passed by more than 80,000 votes in Riverside County, an inland California county with 2.5 million residents.

Bianco said his office received complaints about a discrepancy between handwritten ballot intake logs and the number of votes reported to the state. He claimed the alleged discrepancy amounted to about 45,800 votes. County elections officials have disputed this figure, stating at public meetings that the machine count and final count submitted to the state differed by only about 100 votes.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, has criticized Bianco's actions as unprecedented and designed to undermine confidence in elections. Over the past two months, Bonta has sent multiple letters to Bianco's office stating that his staff is not qualified to conduct a recount and calling the ballot seizure "unacceptable."

Bianco seized nearly 1,000 boxes of ballots and election materials from the county's elections office using a warrant in February. He said the physical recount would resume under the supervision of a court-appointed special master. The sheriff insisted the investigation has "absolutely nothing to do" with his gubernatorial campaign, stating he has a duty to investigate alleged crimes in his county.

The seizure comes as President Donald Trump's administration has also seized ballots and documents from election offices, including a recent action in Georgia. Bianco is one of two prominent Republicans running in California's crowded June primary, which includes more than half a dozen Democratic candidates.