Sheriff Chad Bianco’s ballot grab is a campaign stunt, not an investigation

I have spent my career in law enforcement. I served as chief of standards at California’s Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST), the agency that sets the bar for every sworn officer in the state. I was a police chief and was elected Chief Sergeant-at-Arms for the California State Assembly. 

Now I teach public safety and justice at the University of Virginia. I know how legitimate investigations are done. What Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco is doing with seized ballots is not legitimate.

In California specialized personnel are trained to handle special investigations. POST exists because policymakers recognized that competence requires more than good intentions and a badge. The commission has specific training standards for investigations of homicides, vehicle thefts, domestic violence and others. 

Investigations require subject matter expertise, not just authority.

Election administration is no different. California law assigns oversight of elections to the Secretary of State and enforcement through a district attorney and/or the Attorney General, who holds concurrent jurisdiction over election crimes. The Elections Code establishes procedures for counts, recounts, and retention and preservation of records. 

None of these authorities or processes run through county sheriffs.

What if we extend Bianco’s logic? Would a sheriff seize tax records from the county assessor because a citizens’ group believed too much or too little tax was collected?  Would he impound medical records from a hospital because a neighborhood association suspected malpractice? 

No. Specialized investigators at the Franchise Tax Board and the Medical Board in the Department of Consumer Affairs are trained for exactly these scenarios. 

A sheriff with a warrant and a hunch is laughable. Yet when the subject is ballots, we are supposed to treat the overreach as virtue.

Bianco says his deputies “know how to count.” Secretary of State Shirley Weber noted that the claim is admirable, but counting is not the issue. Ensuring a proper election result requires specialized expertise. 

And perhaps the clearest evidence that Bianco lacks expertise is in the warrants themselves. According to Attorney General Rob Bonta’s filings, the affidavits underlying Bianco’s search warrants failed to identify a specific felony offense or a particular person believed to have committed a crime. These details are required. 

Any serious investigator would know the first step is to identify the crime you believe occurred. Bianco apparently could not.

To be clear, this is not a critique of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department. It is a professional organization with capable public servants. 

This is about Chad Bianco’s political theater. Let us not pretend this has nothing to do with the governor’s race. Bianco is a candidate in a crowded primary. His “investigation” mirrors the playbook of election denialism that has spread rampantly since 2020. 

He claims to have been investigating election fraud since 2022 yet has never advanced a single election fraud case through to prosecution with the Riverside County District Attorney, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Four years. Zero prosecutions. 

And he cannot name the crime he is investigating.

Recently Bonta filed an emergency petition with the 4th District Court of Appeal to halt Bianco’s probe. The court declined, but not on the merits. The three-judge panel rejected the petition, saying it should have been filed in another court. The merits were not addressed. 

Predictably, Bianco declared victory and announced that his deputies would resume counting. That was a Machiavellian trap. Bianco turned a procedural decision into a headline about the courts siding with him. They have not. 

Nevertheless, the investigation and recount are on hold, pending resolution of the legal challenges.

Bianco’s rhetoric doesn’t qualify as a constitutional crisis, but his actions do. Every day the ballots remain in his evidence locker hardens the precedent of his overreach.