Search Articles
RIVERSIDE, Calif. (CN) — California Attorney General Rob Bonta has sued to stop Riverside County Sheriff — and Republican candidate for governor — Chad Bianco, from conducting a “dubious and amateur” recount of votes casts in last year’s special election in the Southern California county.
Bonta filed a petition Monday with the Fourth Appellate District asking the court to halt Bianco’s investigation of purported discrepancies in the number of ballots that were cast and the number of votes that were counted in the November election.
The special election in question involved Proposition 50, California’s redistricting response to Texas which at the urging of President Donald Trump redrew its congressional districts map to hand five more seats to Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives. California voters approved a new map that gives five more seats to Democrats.
“The Riverside County Sheriff’s Office is not equipped nor legally authorized to play the role of elections monitor,” Bonta’s office said in a statement Tuesday. “By all appearances, this investigation is little more than a fishing expedition meant to sow distrust and undermine public confidence in our elections.”
After a citizen group claimed its audit found about 46,000 more ballots had been counted than were cast in Riverside, Bianco obtained search warrants to seize the more than 600,000 ballots that were cast and said his office would manually recount them.
“This is not a recount to determine how many votes were for or against Prop. 50,” Bianco said at a March 20 press conference.
The investigation, Bianco said, was simply to physically count the ballots and compare the total with the number of votes reported.
However, Bonta says he directed Bianco to pause all work and provide his office with a copy of the case file and related documents so they could better understand the basis of the investigation and work with Bianco to decide the best course of action.
But despite repeatedly representing that he would comply with the AG’s directives, Bonta claims Bianco has willfully violated them and has continued to abuse the criminal process.
“Without notifying the attorney general, the sheriff went to court again and obtained an additional search warrant that purports to require a recount of the seized ballots,” Bonta says in his petition. “The application for this warrant not only violated the attorney general’s unambiguous directive, but it was also so facially insufficient that it failed to meet even the most basic constitutional and statutory standards, most notably that it did not allege the commission of a crime.”
The attorney general says it’s his office’s job to ensure the uniform enforcement of state law, including election law. As such, Bonta says he has direct supervision over the sheriff’s investigation and can, if needed, take full charge of the investigation himself.
Moreover, Bonta notes there are statutory processes, overseen by state and local elections officials, to request a recount or challenge the results of an election, but no one invoked them during the statutorily mandated time period.
Bianco said in response to the attorney general’s writ petition that Bonta is a corrupt political activist put in place by Governor Gavin Newsom to run cover for the corruption in Sacramento.
“How many crimes has Bonta investigated? Zero. How many times has he sat before a judge with a warrant in an investigation? Zero,” Bianco said in a statement. “The questions should be directed only toward Bonta. Why would you interfere and obstruct an investigation instead of assist? What are you afraid of?”
Follow @edpetterssonSubscribe to our free newsletters
Our weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.