Sheriff Chad Bianco insisted the move was in the public’s interest.
A MAGA sheriff in southern California is scrambling to defend his eyebrow-raising decision to swipe more than half a million election ballots. Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who is also a Republican candidate for governor, wrote on X Sunday that he seized 650,000 ballots from last year’s election as part of an investigation into supposed voting irregularities.
Bianco claimed his goal was to “physically count the ballots and compare that result with the total votes recorded” in the election that resulted in the passage of Proposition 50, a measure that redrew congressional districts in a way that critics say favors Democrats.Sheriff Chad Bianco/X But California’s Democratic Attorney General, Rob Bonta, has blasted the sheriff’s probe as meritless. Bonta sent a letter to the sheriff earlier this month, accusing Bianco of “flagrantly violating” his directives. The letter also said the investigation into voting irregularities was unsubstantiated and “sets a dangerous precedent and will only sow distrust in our elections.”Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Imag Local officials said the driving force behind the ballot investigation—the claim that 45,000 more votes were counted than received in Bianco’s county—is based on a misunderstanding of certain election procedures. Bianco responded to the sharp rebukes, saying that a judge approved his warrant to take the ballots. “Bonta’s opinion means absolutely nothing,” he added. The probe into election integrity comes as the sheriff makes a run for governor in a crowded field that includes fellow Republican and former Fox News host Steve Hilton. The state runs a nontraditional primary election, where candidates from both parties compete on the same ballot.Carlos Barria/REUTERS Bianco is a loyal Trump supporter who made waves when he posted a 2024 instagram video in uniform endorsing the president. California public officials are not allowed by law to engage in political activities in an official uniform.His ballot seizure mirrors actions taken by the Trump administration in Fulton County, Georgia. There, FBI agents retrieved election materials in January, a move inspired by the debunked conspiracy theory of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Bianco, who was first elected to his post in 2018, said he has been investigating claims of voter fraud since 2022, and that he has not found any. The sheriff's ballot seizure mirrors actions taken by the Trump administration in Fulton County, Georgia.In California, even some Republicans have questioned the rationale of his election probe. “It looks to me like it’s a politically motivated effort,” said former GOP official Jon Fleishman, according to the New York Times.
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