Commentary: Sheriff Chad Bianco can't catch a break. That's a good thing

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Set us as preferred Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco is not lazy, I’ll give him that.During his unsuccessful run for governor this year, you may recall that the MAGA devotee found time to seize more than 650,000 ballots from the Proposition 50 redistricting race, claiming he suspected there were tens of thousands more votes cast than there should have been — a favorite (and false) complaint of election deniers.

There were not.Undaunted by reality, and likely law, Bianco announced he was going to have his deputies recount the votes, even though this kind of interference in the chain of custody of ballots never had occurred anywhere in the United States.

This unprecedented seizure of ballots — something election-denier-in-chief President Trump has been hinting at trying himself for years — quickly became a national news story, and a national concern.With midterms looming and more than one MAGA sheriff out there, what would stop another conspiracy-minded, badge-wearing maverick from doing something similar this November, potentially throwing our national election into turmoil?The specter of Bianco setting a precedent for like-minded conspiracists to follow prompted two significant lawsuits — one led by the election experts at the UCLA Voting Rights Project and the other from state Atty.

Gen.Rob Bonta.

California The state’s high court heard arguments Monday in the dispute over whether Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco had the authority to seize more than 600,000 ballots in last year’s special election in what he claimed was an investigation into potential voter fraud.The state Supreme Court heard arguments in those cases Monday, and while we’ll have to wait for the official rulings, things did not seem to go well for the sheriff.What surprised me most, or maybe just relieved me, was how thin Bianco’...