Resident Group Behind Sheriff’s Investigation Again Brings Election Concerns To Supervisors

As the Riverside County Board of Supervisors prepared to approve a $14.6 million expenditure for the Registrar of Voters (ROV) to conduct the November 3, 2026, election, resident Greg Langworthy warned the costs could soon rise.

“[The Riverside Election Integrity Team (REIT)] is going to request a recount of the June primary election, and the rationale for that is that we found the same discrepancy in that election as the previous election,” he said at the October 27 meeting. “It could be an additional expense, if accepted by the board or by the registrar, to recount those ballots.”

Elizabeth Florer, public information officer for the ROV, said in an email to The Riverside Record that while any registered California voter can request a recount, the request must be filed within five calendar days of the official canvass and that the cost would generally be paid for by the requester at the start of each day of the recount.

“The fee will depend on the contest and the recount method being requested, in accordance with applicable election law,” she said, noting that a full staff was required for any recount.

Langworthy said the cost of a recount would be much lower than another legal battle like the one over Sheriff Chad Bianco’s investigation into last November’s election, and could “possibly resolve the issue we’ve brought before the board for many elections: the discrepancy between the ballots cast and votes counted.”

However, a forensic audit report ordered by the California Secretary of State (SOS) into the November 2025 special statewide election in Riverside County, has already said the group’s claims of discrepancies between the number of ballots cast and counted were “unfounded.”

The audit, conducted by Ramon Michael Alvarez, a political science professor at California Institute of Technology and co-director of the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project, also said the methodology used by REIT to conduct its election audits was “flawed.”

“Although REIT has been informed by [the Riverside County] ROV of the shortfalls of the data provided by [the ROV], REIT continues to use the potentially incomplete and unofficial unprocessed ballot data, comparing that to official processed ballot information,” Alvarez wrote in the report, noting the complexity of election administration in the state. “This type of apples to oranges comparison is not an appropriate method for auditing an election.”

The audit report was included as an attachment to Attorney General Rob Bonta’s October 9 letter to the county, in which he said his office had completed its review of Bianco’s investigation, as ordered by the California Supreme Court, which included materials provided by the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office (RSO), the ROV and the SOS.

In that letter, Bonta said his office had no objection to the destruction of the ballots in accordance with state law. A subsequent email from the SOS said the election materials “must be immediately destroyed” in accordance with Elections Code.

The destruction of the ballots was at the core of REIT member Jim Niederecker’s comments at the October 27 meeting, in which he claimed the supervisors could have ordered the ROV to conduct a recount.

Brooke Federico, public information officer for the county, said in an email to The Record that the supervisors do not have the authority to order the ROV to conduct a recount.

According to Elections Code, supervisors can make a request to a district attorney to file a petition with the superior court for a public recount if there is probable cause to believe that there had been either misconduct or an error or failure in the administration of the election, but there is no provision in the law allowing them to directly order a recount.

Niederecker also claimed that the ballots were destroyed in the midst of two “active investigations,” including one by Riverside County District Attorney (DA) Michael Hestrin.

When asked by The Record, neither Federico nor Florer said they were aware of any investigation into last November’s election being conducted by Hestrin, and Federico added that the DA had not made a request to preserve the ballots.

Hestrin’s office, in an email to The Record, said that while it confirms receipt of emailed complaints, it does not “confirm or deny the existence of possible investigative matters.”

Shari Franklin, another REIT member, also called into question the status of the county’s voter rolls, using a report from a project run by United Sovereign Americans, an organization the Los Angeles Times in 2024 called, “part of a cottage industry of far-right election deniers.”

In response to questions about voter roll maintenance, Florer shared a slide deck with The Record first presented to the election ad hoc committee ahead of the 2024 election. 

According to the slide deck, the ROV addresses and resolves issues identified in the state’s centralized voter registration database, VoteCal, through its own voter management system on a “routine, daily basis.”

In response to the comments, Supervisors Chuck Washington and Jose Medina said they had full confidence in the ROV to run fair and accurate elections.

“I take the job, and as do my colleagues, very seriously, so much so that when we bring people to work here at Riverside County, we look to hire professionals who have subject matter expertise,” Washington said. “I think all of us have expressed our confidence in our Registrar of Voters Art Tinoco [who] has a lot of experience, knows what he’s doing, and I know that he’s conducting elections in a very professional manner, and I have confidence in that.”

“There is no doubt in my mind the integrity of our vote here in Riverside County, in the state of California, and in this great nation of ours,” Medina said. “And as we’ve said many times, democracy relies on just that act, voting, and I continue to encourage everyone to vote and to vote early.”

Separate from his election concerns, Langworthy also called on the supervisors to reimburse Bianco’s legal expenses, arguing the legal process was “a value not only to the sheriff but to the whole county and possibly to the state.” 

The supervisors are set to discuss the sheriff’s claim at the November 3 meeting in closed session.