Unhappy with California’s election results? Call your local sheriff | Opinion
Remember Proposition 50?
It should have been nicknamed the “Tit for Texas” election because its sole purpose was to give California more Democratic congressional districts to counter Texas’ creation of more GOP districts.
Anyway, voters approved Prop. 50 by a substantial margin in last November’s special election. That should have been that, except for the predictable lawsuits challenging the legitimacy of the measure, which so far have come to naught.
Now there’s a new wrinkle.
Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco — whose name you may recognize because he is one of two top GOP candidates running for governor — has gotten all kinds of free publicity by seizing more than 650,000 ballots last month at the behest of a group called the Riverside Election Integrity Team. He followed that up by confiscating an additional 426 boxes of election materials just last week.
The Integrity Team is alleging “irregularities” in the vote-counting process. More specifically, it claims the final number of votes exceeds the number of submitted ballots by nearly 46,000.
The Riverside County registrar of voters said the team relied on raw, incomplete data.
Guess whose word carried more weight with Sheriff Bianco?
Grand juries conducted two investigations and found nothing nefarious
I do not know, for a fact, whether there were “irregularities” in the way Riverside County conducted its vote count, but I will admit to a certain degree of bias. I have covered more elections than I can remember, and not once have I seen results overturned.
More to the point, two Riverside County grand juries investigated similar citizen complaints about elections in recent years — in 2020-21 and again in 2024-25.
Neither jury found violations that would cast doubt on the validity of election results, though they did make numerous recommendations to restore confidence in the integrity of the voting system — many of which the county has either already implemented or plans to do so.
Here’s one example taken from the county’s response to the more recent grand jury report: “To foster greater public engagement, the observation program was revamped: Viewers now benefit from improved observation zones, lobby TV screens, a dedicated check-in area with observer guides, and weekly tours promoted via press releases and social media.”
We have a process for challenging election results. It’s not running to the sheriff
Look, voters have every right to challenge the validity of election results, but there is a process in place for doing so.
The Riverside team could have requested a recount rather than running to the sheriff. The cost would have been substantial, and the Integrity Team would have been stuck with the bill if their allegations were not substantiated.
But if they are so convinced they are correct, shouldn’t they be willing to take that risk, rather than having taxpayers foot the bill?
And let’s not discount the sheriff’s role in this.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the sheriff got one of good buddies, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Jay Kiel, to sign off on the search warrant that allowed the seizure of the ballots.
Now Bianco is making national headlines by promising to get to the bottom of this discrepancy with a hand recount of every single ballot. Never mind that multiple studies have shown hand counting to be less accurate than machine counting.
And who, exactly, is doing the recounting?
It was initially reported that sheriff’s deputies would do the counting, though it’s since come to light that an (unnamed) special master was put in charge of the task. How’s that for election transparency?
At any rate, it would be wise of every California deputy to bone up on their counting skills, because thanks to President Trump’s election denialism, seizure of ballots seems to be a permanent tool in the GOP toolbox.
One more thing to keep in mind: The outcome of this recount will not change the result of the Prop. 50 election; the margin of victory was too high to be affected by 46,000 votes.
No, this has a far more high-minded purpose. Groups like Riverside’s Election Integrity Team are out to discredit voting machines and the people who operate them — presumably so they can put their own people in charge.
Will this help or hurt Bianco’s chances?
This is a political gamble for Sheriff Bianco, who has been polling at or near the top of the leader board in the governor’s race.
If the recount fails to uncover any malfeasance, the sheriff could lose credibility with voters who are on the fence, though he insists that he launched investigation “just as much to prove the election is accurate as it is to show otherwise. ...”
Meanwhile, California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, is doing everything in his power to shut down the recount.
That could be the best scenario for Bianco’s candidacy. He would be saved the embarrassing possibility of having to admit that the original count was correct, while still coming off looking like an election integrity warrior to a certain segment of voters.
The Integrity Team would win as well, by giving members the opportunity to gloat that Democrats were afraid to allow the count to go forward.
Maybe finishing up the recount isn’t such a bad idea after all — except for one thing.
Are we sure we can trust the recounters? Humans are, after all, prone to error.
