Riverside County Reps Say Election Fair, Secure Amid Voter Fraud Claims

Riverside County representatives Thursday pushed back on the U.S. Department of Justice’s claim that more than 1,000 individuals without permanent legal status voted illegally, while also urging residents to trust in the integrity of this year’s election process. 

“If you have evidence and a case, bring an indictment; noncitizens voting in elections is illegal,” Rep. Mark Takano (D-Riverside) said at an October 29 press conference. “Instead, you just hand a [thumb] drive, burdening our local officials with a last minute job that is your job to do as law enforcement.” 

Takano, alongside Rep. Norma Torres (D-Pomona), Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Indio) and Riverside County Supervisors Karen Spiegel and Yxstian Gutierrez, spoke outside of the Riverside County Registrar of Voters’ (ROV) office following an hour-long tour of the facility. The five elected officials said their inspection found everything was functioning properly to conduct a fair election. 

“We can and must fight back by voting and voting early, and there are only a few days left,” Ruiz said during the press conference. “What we saw was an army of election workers, temporary and permanent, who are implementing safeguards — even safeguards for the safeguards.”

Spiegel said security cameras were positioned across the building to ensure the safety of the ballots, while Gutierrez noted that residents can access livestreams to personally observe ballot processing on the ROV’s website.

“The board of supervisors in the past few years in the county of Riverside has invested millions of dollars more into our registrar of voters by increasing personnel,” he said. “We have more security officers and also fencing, and also we’ve made investments in technology as well.”

The tour and the press conference were held days after the ROV received a letter from the DOJ asking the department to withhold 1,355 mail-in ballots as part of a larger claim of voter fraud across the state. 

Elizabeth Florer, public information officer for the ROV, said the office had not reviewed the letter’s content and had no further comment in a Thursday statement to The Riverside Record.

On Wednesday, a federal judge refused to order state election officials to put aside the ballots, stating that the federal government’s request would “wreak havoc and disrupt the election that is already underway, create a chilling effect on election workers and voters alike, and discount the votes of United States citizens.”

The tour also came on the heels of a pair of California Supreme Court rulings that found Sheriff Chad Bianco had illegally seized more than 600,000 voted ballots and other election materials from last November’s statewide special election as part of the department’s investigation into alleged election irregularities, which was first reported by The Record. 

The ballots and other election materials were returned to the ROV late last month. The ballots have since been destroyed in accordance with state law.

Vote centers opened across Riverside County for early voting last Saturday. An additional 131 vote centers are set to open on Halloween, including five super vote centers with additional capacity. Vote centers will be open and ballot drop boxes will be available until 8 p.m. on Election Day.