The California Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco to pause his investigation into alleged fraud in last year's special election.
"To permit further consideration of this petition for review, real parties, their agents, employees, and anyone acting on their behalf are hereby ordered to pause the investigation into the November 2025 special election and preserve all seized items," the court wrote, while agreeing to review the case itself.
Bianco, a Republican who is running for governor in California, seized more than 650,000 ballots from election officials last month, saying he was investigating potential fraud in the special election.
The sheriff said at the time that a group of citizens said they believed they’d found irregularities after they conducted their own “audit” of the results in Riverside County.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, celebrated the court's ruling.
“The Riverside County Sheriff willfully defied my direct orders, seized 650,000 ballots, misused criminal investigatory tools, and created a constitutional emergency in the process,” Bonta said in a statement.
“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,” he said.
Riverside County considered one ballot question in the November special election: whether to approve a new Democratic-drawn congressional map. Voters statewide and in the county ultimately passed the measure, putting Democrats in position to gain up to five House seats in this year’s midterm elections.
A coalition of media outlets, including NBCUniversal, have filed in the court to unseal the warrant that led to the seizure of the ballots. The court asked the parties to offer any opposition to the motion this week.
Bianco's investigation comes as President Donald Trump continues to make false claims that he won the 2020 election and as federal prosecutors continue to investigate alleged irregularities in that race. Earlier this year, the FBI seized hundreds of boxes of Fulton County, Georgia, ballots from the 2020 election. That warrant was based on activists' research, which experts said was broadly rooted in misunderstandings and inaccurate conclusions.
Bianco's gubernatorial campaign was dealt a setback this week when Trump endorsed former Fox News host Steve Hilton, the other leading Republican in the crowded race. All candidates regardless of party appear on the same ballot in California, with the top two vote-getters advancing to the general election.
