The investigation comes as Sheriff Chad Bianco runs for governor. The secretary of state’s office says: “This is not normal behavior for any sheriff.”
The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department is investigating what it describes as “alleged irregularities” in the county’s elections, an unusual move that state election officials warn could fuel conspiracy theories and undermine the public’s faith in elections.
, placing further scrutiny on how the Republican sheriff will approach allegations of election fraud or errors if voters choose him to succeed Democratic While the probe’s scope and focus is not clear, a citizen’s election watchdog group alleges there’s a discrepancy in Riverside County of roughly 46,000 votes between ballots counted and ballots received in November’s special Proposition 50 statewide election. The county’s registrar of voters said the Riverside Election Integrity Team’s figure is inaccurate. The actual gap, Art Tinoco said, is a tiny fraction of the 46,000-vote figure. In an emailed statement, the sheriff’s office confirmed it is “conducting an investigation into alleged irregularities in our elections.” “The Sheriff’s Office and county officials are committed to safe and secure elections,” the statement read, adding that the Board of Supervisors and county officials “are fully cooperating in the investigation to ensure Riverside County residents are confident their elections are safe and secure.” “To ensure there is no miscommunication or conjecture, we will not comment on the specifics or extent of the investigation until it is completed.” In an emailed interview, Greg Langworthy, a leader on the election integrity team, said his team brought the results from its Proposition 50 ballot audit to the Moreno Valley sheriff’s station. It’s not the first time his team discovered a gap between ballots counted and ballots cast in the county, Langworthy said. He said they found a 33,888-vote gap in the county’s 2024 general election. The group “believes it is our responsibility to report the results of our audits to our county supervisors and law enforcement, and this is what did in this instance and after the 2024 election,” he said. Riverside County is cooperating with the investigation, County Executive Officer Jeff Van Wagenen said via email. “The Board of Supervisors and the are committed to safeguarding free and fair elections in Riverside County,” he said. “ staff are trained to follow specific procedures to ensure that all eligible votes are counted correctly. These procedures are regulated by several state and federal laws.” In February, Shasta County Registrar of Voters Clint Curti, who has been described by the San Francisco Chronicle as a “polarizing elections skeptic,” said a Riverside sheriff’s employee confiscated “all of the records in Riverside,” Curtis said this during a Shasta County Board of Supervisors meeting “while on the stand to defend himself against alleged election misconduct,” the Scout reported. He also attended and spoke at a Feb. 10 Riverside County Board of Supervisors election workshop as a guest of Langworthy’s team, the Scout added. The office of Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican candidate for California governor, is investigating what it describes as “alleged irregularities in our elections.” Medina expressed concern about the sheriff’s investigation. County residents, the supervisor said, deserve to know the legal basis for the investigation and when confiscated ballots will be returned to the registrar’s office. “That’s the absolute dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” the sheriff said. “And the problem with that supervisor is Riverside County has always been an island. We’re an island operating in the state of California because our government has never been political.” Bianco said Medina “has brought strife into a government that was only concerned about doing what’s best for Riverside, and now he has brought politics into the mix. And that is harming us.”With the GOP holding a razor-thin House of Representatives majority, Proposition 50 reshaped House districts to potentially give California Democrats five more House seats in the November 2026 election. The new maps are meant to counter Texas’ legislature redrawing its districts in a way that could elect more House Republicans. During the supervisors’ Feb. 10 meeting, Langworthy said his group audited the Proposition 50 election in Riverside County and found that voting machines tallied 45,896 more ballots than could be accounted for. “We are accounting for all the ballots that came into the system, and there cannot be any more votes than the ballots that came into the system,” Langworthy told supervisors. Tinoco, the county elections chief, told supervisors Langworthy’s team’s findings are based on a misunderstanding of election data. The team used raw data on ballots that hadn’t been processed and verified and relied on handwritten forms that are prone to human error, especially by fatigued election workers, Tinoco said. “Did the Nov. 4, 2025, statewide special election have a 45,896-ballot discrepancy between ballots cast and ballots counted?” Tinoco said. “The answer to that is no.” Through a rigorous process involving two independent systems, the registrar’s office determined the gap between votes received and cast is 103 — well within the state-mandated acceptable margin of error, Tinoco added. The gap between votes received and counted in the Proposition 50 special election in Riverside County is 103, according to Registrar of Voters Art Tinoco, seen 2024. A citizen’s election watchdog group claims the gap is closer to 46,000. The 103-vote margin is also nowhere close to overcoming Proposition 50’s roughly 82,000-vote margin of victory in Riverside County. “We are doing an amazing job in Riverside County,” the registrar said. “Don’t know what else we could be doing different.” Langworthy said his group maintains its ballot count is accurate and can’t be explained by human error. “A member of our team has demonstrated it is statistically impossible to have made” 45,896 miscounts, he said. Led by elected Democrat Shirley Weber, the secretary of state’s office sees red flags in the Riverside County sheriff’s investigation. “The sheriff’s office seizure of ballots appears based on highly questionable allegations — and it is precisely this type of action by the sheriff that fuels election conspiracy theories that erode confidence in our nation’s elections,” the office’s statement read.. For years, Trump’s most ardent supporters — some of whom serve in his second administration — have pushed baseless election-rigging conspiracies in Fulton County and Arizona to explain “This is not normal behavior for any sheriff — and for good reason,” the secretary of state’s statement read. “They are not elections officials nor equipped to handle these types of investigations. We’ve seen the same type of behavior by law enforcement in Fulton County, Georgia and Arizona based on allegations of election irregularities that have been debunked over and over again.”These are the California State Senate seats LA County voters are watchingCryptocurrency and AI industries tested their influence in Illinois. It didn’t go that welltold the San Francisco Chronicle “It’s weird for the sheriff to be investigating,” Levitt was quoted as saying. “But there’s nothing inherently wrong in the sheriff’s office investigating, even if it’s not normal, if they’re doing a real law enforcement investigation.”, sheriff’s investigators sought voter registration records and interviewed elections staff as part of a criminal probe into voter fraud, according to former registrar Rebeca Spencer.Eat and come back for more at these 5 Los Angeles-area buffets‘A punch in the gut:’ Cesar Chavez allegations set off shockwaves in Southern CaliforniaMan found dead after Hermosa Beach standoff was prominent developer who may have died days earlierLAUSD unions announce April 14 strike date at downtown rallyLA to raise property tax bills because criminals are stealing copper wire
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