Editor’s note: All legal documents pertaining to this case obtained by The Riverside Record can be accessed here. All of The Riverside Record’s reporting about Sheriff Chad Bianco’s election investigation can be found here.
The California Supreme Court this week announced it would review the legal case filed by the UCLA Voting Rights Project (VRP) on behalf of four Riverside County voters that Sheriff Chad Bianco illegally seized the ballots from last November’s statewide special election as part of his investigation into alleged election fraud, as first reported by The Riverside Record.
“We hope that the court will grant our relief, which is to return the ballots and election materials back to the county registrar,” Sonni Waknin, Senior Voting Rights Counsel at VRP, said in an interview with The Record. “And, also, on the merits of the case, strongly agree with our argument that the Elections Code requires that the ballots, even in the event of a criminal prosecution, remain in the custody of county elections officials.”
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Bianco, who is running for governor as a Republican, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Xavier Becerra, who is running for governor as a Democrat, serves as a voting rights advisor for VRP.
The May 13 order came less than a month after VRP filed a letter with the court about “breach in election security and possible additional Elections Code violations,” related to the accidental release of documents associated with the investigation first reported by Inland Empire Law Weekly.
The organization argued that the ongoing investigation — along with the data breach that attorney Robert Tyler said exposed voter roll information like names, party affiliation, addresses, emails and phone numbers for Riverside county voters — was “irreparably harming the integrity of the electoral process in California.”
In response to the allegations made by VRP, new lead attorney for Bianco, Bradley Hertz, filed a letter with the court stating that the allegation that Tyler had created a “public link” was misleading, since it was meant to be a private link and was mistakenly made public.
Hertz also said none of the shared files were from materials that had been seized as part of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office (RSO) search warrants and were instead shared with the department by a group of residents, calling themselves the Riverside Election Integrity Team (REIT), who obtained the documents from the Riverside County Registrar of Voters (ROV) in accordance with state law.
Hertz ended the letter by saying that the department was “not aware of any malicious use of any of the data in the files,” and said that he would provide additional information after an investigation into the leak was completed.
According to the order, both ROV Art Tinoco and Bianco must file briefings with the court by June 12 detailing why the relief sought by VRP should not be granted.
“It’s the first time the court has indicated that they are going to be reviewing the case,” Waknin said. “And they’ve said they’re not just reviewing it, but they’re reviewing it on an expedited timeline.”
However, the court declined to grant a VRP’s request to pause the investigation pending the outcome of the case since that had already been ordered as part of the court’s review of Attorney General Rob Bonta’s suit against Bianco.
In that case’s latest filing, Bianco’s attorneys argued that Bonta had not “established a clear ministerial duty enforceable by mandamus,” stating that no state law granted the AG’s office “plenary operational authority to intervene in and terminate a lawful criminal investigation conducted by an independently elected sheriff or to invalidate judicially issued search warrants.”
The filing also requested that the court “adopt a balanced approach that preserves ballot integrity, respects judicial authority, and maintains public confidence through neutral court supervision.”
Wednesday’s order was the latest in the legal back and forth over Bianco’s investigation into alleged election fraud stemming from REIT’s allegation that there were 45,896 fewer ballots cast than counted. The group’s claim stems from its review of publicly available election materials obtained from the ROV.
Tinoco, in a February 10 workshop, denied the allegation, stating that the difference was actually 103 as reported to the state via the county’s Election Information Management System and the Liberty Vote System.
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