Gavin Newsom spent $120 million gerrymandering California's congressional maps to steal five Republican House seats.
Now a sheriff with a warrant and a court-appointed special master is physically counting every ballot from the election that made it possible.
What Rob Bonta has done to stop that count from finishing is the story Sacramento does not want you reading.
California Voter Fraud Investigation Uncovers 45,000 Unexplained Ballots
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco launched his investigation after the Riverside Election Integrity Team brought him a number that didn't add up.
County records showed 611,428 ballots were actually cast in the November 2025 special election on Proposition 50.
California officials certified 657,322 votes.
That's a gap of 45,896 ballots – in a single county – for an election that handed Democrats a gerrymandered map designed to flip five congressional seats in 2026.
Bianco isn't guessing.
He seized nearly 1,000 boxes of ballots with a judge-signed warrant and is now conducting a physical count under court supervision.
"This investigation is simple," Bianco said. "Physically count the ballots and compare that result with the total votes recorded."
Elections officials say temporary poll workers kept handwritten intake logs that were never meant to serve as the official count – and that the certified machine tally differed from those logs by just 103 votes.
Bianco isn't buying it.
"There is no acceptable error, small or large, in our elections – let alone a 45,000 vote difference," he said.
Rob Bonta Tried to Shut Down the Riverside County Ballot Probe
While Bianco was executing his warrant, California Attorney General Rob Bonta launched a two-month campaign to stop him.
Over two months, Bonta's office sent letter after letter demanding Bianco cease the investigation, hand over his complete investigative file, and stand down before the state pursued legal action – all before a single ballot had been counted.
Bianco fired back, accusing Bonta of attempting to intimidate the probe and called him "an embarrassment to law enforcement."
A Riverside Superior Court judge sided with the sheriff, greenlighting the count under a court-appointed special master.
Secretary of State Shirley Weber piled on as well, telling reporters that Bianco's deputies "are not elections officials and they do not have expertise in election administration."
A law enforcement officer with a court-approved warrant counting physical ballots undermines public confidence.
The unexplained 46,000-vote discrepancy does not.
That's the California Democrat position.
Gavin Newsom Spent 120 Million on California Redistricting and Now the Ballots Are Being Counted Again
Proposition 50 – officially titled the "Election Rigging Response Act" by its own authors – bypassed California's independent Citizens Redistricting Commission entirely.
Newsom pushed the Legislature to draw new congressional maps in-house, with the explicit goal of flipping five Republican House seats before the 2026 midterms.
The campaign raised over $120 million, backed by the House Majority PAC and George Soros' Fund for Policy Reform.
It passed 64% to 36%.
Republicans challenged it all the way to the Supreme Court.
In February, SCOTUS refused to block the maps.
The redrawn districts take effect for the 2026 elections – the same cycle that will determine whether Republicans hold the House.
Now one of the counties where the vote was certified is under active criminal investigation by its own sheriff.
The special master overseeing the count has not set a completion date.
California Democrats spent a year calling this election clean.
The ballots are being counted again anyway.
Gavin Newsom built a $120 million machine to take the House – and Rob Bonta spent two months trying to make sure nobody counted the ballots that paid for it.
Sources:
- Anders Hagstrom, "California sheriff seizes 650,000 ballots in defiance of state officials over election count dispute," Fox News, March 22, 2026.
- Rusty Weiss, "Sheriff Calls Out Dem AG Intimidation Over Massive Ballot Discrepancy in Newsom-Backed Prop 50 Scheme," RedState, March 21, 2026.
- "California Proposition 50, Use of Legislative Congressional Redistricting Map Amendment (2025)," Ballotpedia.
- "The Supreme Court lets California use its new, Democratic-friendly congressional map," NPR, February 4, 2026.
- Spencer Kimball, "California 2026 Poll: Swalwell Shakes Up Election for Governor," Emerson College Polling, December 2025.