The California Secretary of State’s Office Tuesday confirmed that the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office (RSO) had seized the ballots from last November’s special statewide election on what it called “highly questionable allegations.”
“It is precisely this type of action by the sheriff that fuels election conspiracy theories that erode confidence in our nation’s elections,” the agency said in a statement to The Riverside Record. “This is not normal behavior for any sheriff — and for good reason. They are not elections officials nor equipped to handle these types of investigations.”
Sheriff Chad Bianco, in an email to The Record, defended the department’s investigation.
“I would think the Secretary of State would want answers,” he said. “Ignoring questions and destroying ballots before any questions can be answered is a concern for the public. I work for them, not the Secretary of State.”
The confirmation came two weeks after The Record first reported that the sheriff’s office was investigating what it called “alleged election irregularities,” and just days after Supervisor Jose Medina called on Bianco to take a leave of absence from his role as sheriff during his gubernatorial campaign.
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“He is running for governor and, at the same time, interjecting himself into the electoral process, which is highly irregular, and after we had already had a hearing where we found no evidence of irregularity,” Medina said in an interview with The Record following Tuesday’s Riverside County Board of Supervisors meeting. “Given all that, I do think that he should take a leave of absence from being the county sheriff while he runs for governor of the State of California.”
Medina also called on the sheriff, during comments made at the end of Tuesday’s meeting, to answer a trio of questions including the legal basis for the department to investigate the ballot counting process, the status of the department’s recount of the ballots and a timeline for when the ballots would be returned to the Riverside County Registrar of Voters.
Bianco, in an email to The Record, said he would not be taking a leave of absence, calling Medina’s statements, “completely political and personal.” He added that Medina’s questions “do not need to be answered, and he will be notified when the investigation is complete.”
The Secretary of State’s Office likened RSO’s investigation to a pair of federal election probes happening in Georgia and Arizona that it said were “based on allegations of election irregularities that have been debunked over and over again.”
The office said it remained confident in county election officials in both the administration of last November’s special election and the upcoming primary election set for June 2.
“The Office of the California Secretary of State will continue to provide support to the Riverside County ROV’s office as they navigate the sheriff’s investigation,” the statement said.
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