California justices slap down Riverside County sheriff over ballot grab

Filed 1h ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

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Super Polka

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Melvy Arce Vargas · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

California's Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco unlawfully seized 650,000 ballots from November's redistricting special election, siding with state Senator Sabrina Cervantes and ordering the ballots returned to the county registrar.

In a companion case, the court also found Attorney General Rob Bonta had the authority to order Bianco to halt his investigation and hand over case files, rejecting the sheriff's argument that he could ignore such directions. Bianco, a former Republican gubernatorial candidate, had launched the probe after a citizens' group claimed an audit found 46,000 more ballots counted than cast.

Bonta called the investigation a fishing expedition based on debunked information and said Bianco willfully defied his orders. The ballots in question helped pass Proposition 50, which redrew California's congressional maps after Texas redrew its own at President Trump's request.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A sheriff decided he'd run his own recount on a hunch, and the state's highest court told him that's not how any of this works. When the courts, the attorney general, and plain election law all line up against you, that's not persecution, that's just three strikes. The ballots go back where they belong, and the sheriff gets to explain to Riverside County why the fishing trip cost so much.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: Super Polka · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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