The court ruled unanimously in two cases stemming from a vote last year on a ballot measure.
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The California Supreme Court on Thursday ordered a sheriff to return more than 600,000 ballots he seized from election officials, finding that he lacked the authority to review them based on a thin allegation of fraud.
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco (R) impounded the ballots after voters weighed in last year on a measure to redraw the state’s congressional map and give Democrats an opportunity to capture five more House seats. The measure passed by 56 percent in Riverside County and 64 percent statewide.
Bianco was responding to a review of public records by the citizens group Riverside Election Integrity Team, which claimed the county had counted 46,000 more ballots than it had received.
The county’s registrar of voters, Art Tinoco, has said the group misinterpreted county data. His office’s review found the county counted 657,322 ballots. That is 103 votes more than the number of people recorded as having voted, a much smaller discrepancy that is in line with typical election errors.
Bianco said this spring that he planned to have his deputies count the ballots to determine whether they matched the number of people listed as having voted. In April, the state Supreme Court halted his investigation so it could review legal challenges to it.
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On Thursday, it ruled unanimously that Bianco had to return the ballots to the registrar of voters. The court was responding to a lawsuit filed by the UCLA Voting Rights Project and Xavier Becerra, a former Democratic Cabinet secretary and House member who is running for governor this fall. In a second case, it ruled unanimously that Bianco had to provide additional material to state Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) in response to a lawsuit he filed.
The seizure of ballots alarmed election officials around the nation who say they must maintain control of election materials to ensure no one tampers with it. Bianco and his supporters said law enforcement should independently investigate election complaints.
The matter came before the state’s high court as voters and officials prepare for this fall’s midterm elections, and President Donald Trump rails against how elections are conducted. The president has unsuccessfully sought to limit mail voting, pushed for citizenship checks of voters and dismantled federal entities that help keep elections secure. The FBI this year has taken possession of 2020 ballots in Georgia, a trove of 2020 election data in Arizona and interviewed current and former officials in Wisconsin about the 2020 election there.
In response, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed legislation last week barring the seizure of ballots, voting machines or other election materials before results have been certified.
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