Sheriff Chad Bianco of Riverside County, who is also running for Governor, claims he is receiving threats from California’s AG, Rob Bonta, after opening an investigation into the 2025 Prop 50 election in his county.
Riverside County records show just 611,428 ballots cast, yet Secretary of State Shirley Weber certified 657,322 votes to the state. The following is from New California State.
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a leading 2026 Republican gubernatorial candidate, held a press conference Friday morning to expose what he described as repeated attempts by Attorney General Rob Bonta to intimidate and derail his office’s investigation into a massive 45,896-ballot discrepancy in the November 2025 Proposition 50 special election.
“This investigation is very simple,” Bianco stated. “Our investigation will determine the validity of that alleged discrepancy… We will do that by physically counting the ballots. This is not a recount to determine how many votes were for or against Prop 50.”
The sheriff revealed that weeks ago, a representative from Bonta’s office contacted him directly and demanded the probe be halted until after March 6. Follow-up letters from the attorney general on February 26 and March 4 reiterated the order to stop. No legal justification was provided.
Here is Sheriff Bianco’s press conference regarding this investigation.
“Instead of addressing the discrepancy, Bonta has tried multiple times to shut down our investigation,” Bianco said, accusing the state’s top law enforcement officer of intimidation tactics aimed at protecting the integrity of a controversial measure critics have long labeled an election-rigging power grab.
Proposition 50 — Governor Gavin Newsom’s so-called “Election Rigging Response Act” — amended the state constitution to allow the Democrat-controlled Legislature to redraw congressional districts mid-decade, bypassing the independent redistricting commission. The measure passed amid widespread concerns it was designed to entrench one-party power in Washington, D.C. and in California.
This latest development fits a pattern of obstruction by Bonta’s office in Prop 50-related matters. As the California Globe previously reported, the attorney general has repeatedly sought to delay court proceedings and “run out the clock on justice” in lawsuits tied to the measure.