California Supreme Court appears skeptical of sheriff's authority to seize ballots

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Set us as preferred California Supreme Court justices hammered Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco over his seizure of hundreds of thousands of Proposition 50 ballots in a pair of back-to-back hearings on Monday, appearing poised to order the ballots returned and sharply limit the sheriff’s power to snatch similar election materials in the future.Bianco, a Republican who came in fourth in this spring’s crowded California gubernatorial primary, carted off truckloads of ballots from the Riverside County Registrar of Voters in February, after securing a warrant based on claims that the office allowed fraudulent votes in the special election to redraw California’s congressional districts last fall.

According to a sworn declaration by one of Bianco’s sergeants, armed deputies from Riverside County’s Special Investigations Bureau, Emergency Response Team and SWAT unit were sent to sweep up pallets of sealed votes and bring them to the Moreno Valley Sheriff’s Station on Feb.26 — a day after California Atty.

Gen.Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber ordered Bianco to stand down.

California Bianco’s unusual probe drew a sharp rebuke from California Atty.Gen.

Rob Bonta, who said it ‘sets a dangerous precedent and will only sow distrust in our elections.’In the days that followed, deputies began their own ad hoc recount — an activity they’d never been trained for, and which state officials and civil liberties groups say flies in the face of the plain language of the state’s election law that says “in no event shall ballots be moved.” Voters sued.So did Bonta.

In oral arguments on both cases Monday morning, California‘s seven Supreme Court justices appeared at times flabbergasted by claims that the move was not only permitted but blessed under state law — and that California’s top cop ...