Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco broke the law and created “a substantial risk to election integrity” when he seized more than 650,000 ballots, California’s Supreme Court ruled last Thursday morning.

The justices ruled unanimously that Bianco must return the ballots to the county’s top election administrator and “refrain from further handling” them. In a second ruling, the court also held that Bianco broke the law when he ignored directives from the state’s attorney general to hold off on his plans to execute a search warrant to seize the ballots last March.

Bianco’s argument “overlooks that allowing law enforcement unfettered access to ballots, or the ability to handle and count them in secret based on unregulated protocols, itself creates a substantial risk to election integrity,” Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero wrote.

“There is no need to introduce this risk because the Elections Code already contains its own comprehensive procedures for recounting and examining ballots, including for law enforcement purposes, without exposing them to alteration or tampering — unlike the unlawful seizure that occurred here,” the ruling read.

The twin courtroom defeats for the conservative lawman, who unsuccessfully ran for governor as a Republican earlier this year, represent both a legal and moral victory for voting rights advocates who warned that Bianco’s ballot seizure could serve as a playbook for other right-wing law enforcement officers hoping to upset the outcome of the coming midterm elections.

“Whether it’s a sheriff in Riverside or the President of the United States, we won’t let anyone take away Californians’ voice in our democracy,” Attorney General Rob Bonta said at a news conference shortly after the court released its rulings. “Come November, we’re ready for whatever comes our way.”

Bianco went before the California Supreme Court in August to argue that a search warrant obtained by a politically friendly judge was sufficient justification to take the ballots. That’s despite a state law prohibiting the removal of ballots, contested or otherwise, from election officials.

The justices expressed varying degrees of skepticism about both arguments last month, describing them as “bizarre” and “more than counterintuitive.”

“In short, Bianco’s arguments fail to persuade us that we should interpret (California election law) in a manner inconsistent with its plain text, which mandates that voted ballots remain in the custody of elections officials,” Guerrero wrote.

Bianco released a video statement on social media in which he said he was considering options to appeal, including to federal courts. He also sent a campaign fundraising message to his supporters asserting that Bonta had “succeeded in burying the truth—for now.”

His office seized the ballots after the November 2025 special election, in which a majority of voters agreed to redraw the state’s political boundaries to favor Democrats. As CalMatters reported shortly after the raid, he did so at the urging of members of the “constitutional sheriff” movement and other local activists who pointed to apparent discrepancies in local election results.

California Democratic leaders passed two new laws after Bianco’s office seized the ballots, and Gov. Gavin Newsom signed them last week. One makes it a felony to seize — or order the seizure of — ballots, election records or voting machines before election results are certified. The other expands on existing state election laws and makes it illegal to take election materials or voting machines from elections officials.

With the ruling, Bianco will be required to give the ballots back to the registrar. But the matter may not be settled yet. In August, Bianco said his office would continue its investigation into the 2025 election, no matter the court’s ruling.

The ruling also settled whether local law enforcement leaders answer to the state attorney general. “(Bianco’s) arguments all boil down to the unsustainable view that the state’s chief law enforcement officer … must remain a mere bystander to an unprecedented sheriff’s investigation of undeniable statewide significance,” the court ruled. “As we have explained, that is not the case.”