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ACCORDING TO LIZ - No longer can the California coastal elitists look down on Arizona, Alabama, Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania about their election-denial epidemics. Not only has it becomes an existential national crisis with the whole future of democracy at stake, it has now come home to roost on border of LA County.
Over the past four years, promoters of the conceit that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump have pushed election denier advocates into positions of power – governors, secretaries of state, and attorneys general – in 17 states where they are poised to influence oversight and outcomes this year and in 2028.
Now, in our own backyard, Republican gubernatorial candidate and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco is fomenting election distrust by illegally seizing hundreds of thousands of ballots from the Riverside County Registrar of Voters based on highly questionable claims of discrepancies in the special election for Proposition 50.
This voter‑approved redistricting overhaul was pursued by leading California Democrats to counter mid‑decade Republican map‑drawing in Texas earlier last year to counter its potential impact.
The resounding success of Prop 50 winning almost two-thirds of the vote was primarily due to exceptionally high turnout by Democratic voters appalled by the Texan gerrymandering which was overtly designed to disenfranchise people of color and progressive voices, and keep Republicans in power. Potentially forever.
The Riverside’s alt-Republican answer to Maricopa County, Arizona’s Joe Arpaio with a Trump-like lack of grasp on reality in thinking a claim of voter fraud in one county could reverse the wave of Californians disgusted at the Republican breaking of norms redrawing electoral maps in red states across the country.
Despite his title, Bianco is no ordinary lawman. A hacking incident against a database belonging to the Oath Keepers exposed him as a former member. His social media paths lead to multiple comments about rigged elections and right-wing conspiracy theories.
He is also pushing Republican leaders to weaken state regulations limiting law enforcement’s ability to cooperate with ICE.
What his continuing skirmishes with Democratic leaders are doing is elevating his name recognition in other parts of California, especially the conservative counties in the central and northern sections of the state where his actions are more likely to resonate, increasing his chances in the gubernatorial race and possibly become the spoiler that forces out all Democratic contenders for the top two run-off.
Leaving California voters a choice of worse and worst for the November elections.
And leaving Trump to chortle all the way to the mid-terms with the expected thorn in the Republican side now drawn by an internal infection.
Reminiscent of Trump’s narrative of the stolen 2020 election, Bianco illegally seized more than 650,000 ballots from the from the Riverside County Registrar of Voters purportedly to investigate discrepancies in the state’s 2025 redistricting referendum.
Based on claims from an audit of Riverside County Registrar of Voters’ handwritten logs by a local group of right-wing citizen-volunteers calling themselves the Riverside Election Integrity Team.
Alleging discrepancies in the special election for Proposition 50, the voter‑approved redistricting overhaul that California leaders pursued to counter mid‑decade Republican map‑drawing in Texas that passed. Primarily due to exceptionally high turnout by Democratic voters across the state appalled by the potential impact of the Texan redistricting
California Attorney General Rob Bonta called out Bianco’s investigation as “unprecedented in scope and scale” and urged Bianco to stop it. Secretary of State Shirley Weber, the UCLA Voting Rights Project and Xavier Becerra, California’s prior Attorney General and current Democratic candidate for governor, have all challenged Bianco’s witch hunt as lacking credible evidence
Becerra condemned the sheriff: “Chad Bianco is out of control. Sheriffs are supposed to enforce the law, not break it.”
More recently, the sheriff seized an additional 426 boxes of ballots after Bonta’s office had directed him to pause all investigative activity.
The County Registrar has said that the discrepancy is only 103 votes, attributable to human error, but Bianco is still insisting on hand-counting the ballots.
And not only is he an alt-right shill for Fox News and the YouTube channels and podcasts of conservative pastors and other fringe groups, Bianco’s an ineffective administrator.
As documented in Wikipedia, his department has the lowest closure rate for Part 1 property crimes in California, performing at less than 25% of the overall average. In 2022, Riverside County jails reported 18 inmate deaths, the biggest number in 15 years. The surge attracted multiple lawsuits against both the prison facilities and Bianco.
In 2023, Bianco's department was placed under investigation by the California Department of Justice to determine if the organization had “engaged in a pattern or practice of unconstitutional policing amid deeply concerning allegations relating to conditions of confinement in its jail facilities, excessive force, and other misconduct.”
Bianco's claim in 2025, that he foiled a third Trump assassination attempt by arresting filmmaker and Republican activist Vem Miller outside a Coachella Valley rally for the president, appeared to be a somewhat ludicrous attempt to ingratiate himself with Trump insiders and raise his name value for the MAGA cause.
Sheriff's deputies had pulled Miller in for possession of a shotgun, a loaded handgun and a high-capacity magazine - items Miller said he disclosed at the checkpoint - leading to a $100 million federal lawsuit against Bianco for fabricating allegations that the car had fake plates and Miller was carrying fake passports and licenses with aliases, as well as forged VIP and press passes to bolster the narrative of Bianco as a cowboy hero.
Republicans in positions of power are watching and hoping to learn what might help them if California does not effectively and summarily shut this lawless drivel down.
Where California holds an advantage is that it has a star activist in Bonta, that County officials are fighting back hard and that, citing privacy issues, some Riverside voters have filed a petition with the state Supreme Court demanding return of their ballots.
Bianco-gate should be a lesson for all Californians. The man is neither suitable nor qualified to head California, and the sooner people act to sweep this Trump-lite clown out of the governor's race, before the danger to democracy he poses can spread, the better.
(Liz Amsden is a former Angeleno now living in Vermont and a regular CityWatch contributor. She writes on issues she’s passionate about, including social justice, government accountability, and community empowerment. Liz brings a sharp, activist voice to her commentary and continues to engage with Los Angeles civic affairs from afar. She can be reached at [email protected].)
