Judge unseals warrants tied to California sheriff's allegations of fraud in 2025 special election

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Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco addresses supporters of US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a rally in Coachella, California on October 12, 2024. (Photo by Frederic J. BROWN / AFP) (Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/A

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RIVERSIDE COUNTY, Calif. - Search warrants that allowed Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco to seize hundreds of thousands of ballots as part of his probe into allegations of fraud surrounding California's 2025 special election were unsealed and publicized Wednesday. The documents offer a more detailed look into the legal fight between Bianco and State Attorney General Rob Bonta over claims of ballot count discrepancies. 

A coalition of news organizations, including KTVU FOX 2 and Fox Television Stations, filed a motion this month in Riverside County court seeking public access to the orders.

The unsealed warrants were released on the same day the California Supreme Court ordered Bianco, who's also a Republican candidate for governor, to pause his probe into election fraud allegations while the judges review the legal challenge against it.

Chad Bianco's election fraud claims

At the heart of Bianco's claims of election fraud is an alleged "unexplainable disparity of some 45,000 votes," identified by the Riverside Election Integrity Team, a local activist group.

The Riverside County Registrar of Voters said the group’s disparity concerns were unfounded and a result of flawed tallying. 

Differing ballot discrepancies

Using the Registrar of Voters' official standard of counting votes, local election officials uncovered a discrepancy of only 103 ballots.

However, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department specifically cited the activist group's higher numbers as probable cause in order to acquire two search warrants allowing deputies to seize ballots. 

In the three warrants filed between Feb. 9 and March 19, sheriff investigator Robert Castellanos alleged probable cause "that a felony had been committed or that a particular person has committed a felony."

The warrants also reveal some new details about the tense logistical confrontation that then ensued between the Registrar’s office and deputies, with staff initially refusing to release pallets of materials to law enforcement. The sheriff's department used the warrants to seize about 1,000 boxes of ballots, then obtained a third warrant in March that allowed the department to seize an additional 426 boxes of ballots.

In an effort to obtain the warrants, Bianco also cited a May deadline, six months from the 2025 election, when the ballots are mandated by law to be destroyed.

Overall, Bianco’s department seized nearly 650,000 ballots cast in the November 2025 special election. 

The election resulted in the passage of Proposition 50, which allowed California to move forward with redrawing the state's congressional maps. Incidentally, the number of ballots that Bianco claimed were unaccounted for would not have swayed the results of the statewide measure.

Legal back-and-forth between Bianco, Bonta

Bianco said during a March press conference that the collection of the ballots constituted a "fact-finding mission" intended to confirm the accuracy of the election.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta ordered Bianco and the Riverside County Sheriff's Department to halt its recount due to concerns surrounding the investigation’s legality and dissatisfaction at the sheriff’s justification, though court documents claim the orders were ignored.

Bonta also requested a halt in late March to Bianco’s recount efforts, though the request was quickly denied by a panel of three judges.

According to court documents, Riverside voters opposed to Bianco’s investigation have raised concern that the seizure of ballots "may be politically motivated" considering that the sheriff is running for California governor.

In a statement Wednesday, Bonta praised the California Supreme Court's ruling to pause the probe, calling Bianco, a "rogue sheriff."

"What the Sheriff says and what he does are often two different things," Bonta said in a statement to KCRA. "Today’s decision by the California Supreme Court reins in the destabilizing actions of a rogue Sheriff, prohibiting him from continuing this investigation while our litigation continues."

Bianco said in an Instagram post Wednesday that he'd continue to "argue for the investigation to continue despite political activist Rob Bonta’s use of lawfare to stop it and cover up this lawful investigation. We simply need to know the total number of ballots. Bonta is wasting taxpayer dollars for politics."