The California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco unlawfully seized 650,000 ballots while investigating baseless voter fraud claims tied to last year’s special election on a congressional redistricting measure. The decision was unanimous.

The state’s high court ordered Bianco to return the seized materials from the Proposition 50 special election. California voters had resoundingly approved the measure to redraw the state’s congressional districts.

The ruling rejected the Republican sheriff’s handling of an investigation that placed hundreds of thousands of voted ballots in law enforcement custody. The justices concluded that Bianco’s seizure violated California law.

Bianco, a Trump supporter who lost the gubernatorial primary race last year, launched the criminal investigation after receiving claims from the Riverside Election Integrity Team, an activist group. The group alleged that more ballots had been counted than votes cast.

Local election officials debunked that claim. Despite that response, Bianco proceeded with a probe that ultimately led his office to confiscate a massive collection of ballots and other election materials.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a lawsuit that Bianco confiscated hundreds of thousands of ballots as part of the investigation in February. Weeks later, the sheriff seized another 426 boxes of election materials.

The California Supreme Court found that Bianco had not followed the established legal mechanisms for investigating allegations involving an election. Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero wrote the opinion explaining the court’s conclusion.

“We hold that the seizure of the ballots was unlawful,” Guerrero wrote. “While allegations of election improprieties are a very serious matter, our Elections Code contains numerous established mechanisms for investigating and proving misconduct that do not compromise the integrity of voted ballots — contrary to the means employed here.”

The justices ordered Bianco to return the ballots to the Riverside County registrar of voters. They also instructed him “to refrain from further handling of the ballots except as necessary to comply with our order.”

That directive sharply limits what Bianco can do with the election materials while carrying out the court’s decision. His attorney did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment about the ruling.

Bonta praised the unanimous decision in a statement. He said the court had delivered “important clarity for our constitutional system in California.”

“Election fraud can and should be investigated. But misuse of criminal investigative tools — without any evidence that a crime was committed — needlessly undermines trust in our elections system and in law enforcement,” Bonta added.

Bianco’s investigation into claims of widespread voter fraud mirrors efforts from the Trump administration to cast doubt on election security ahead of the midterms. The Riverside County probe began with an activist group’s allegation that local election officials had already debunked.

President Donald Trump and his allies have gone to extraordinary lengths to undermine public confidence in the election. They have claimed without evidence that Democrats can win only by cheating.

Trump has also floated federal control of elections, even though those elections are administered by state and local authorities. His statements have fueled fears that he will deploy federal law enforcement or the military to polling sites.

In California, however, the state Supreme Court’s ruling leaves no ambiguity about the sheriff’s seizure of the voted ballots. The materials must go back to the county registrar, and Bianco must stop handling them except as required to follow the court’s order.

The decision also preserves the distinction Guerrero outlined between investigating serious allegations and compromising the integrity of voted ballots. Election misconduct claims may be investigated, the court found, but the Elections Code already provides mechanisms for doing so without resorting to the unlawful seizure used here.

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