Oct. 2, 2026
No badge above the ballot box
In two unanimous opinions, the California Supreme Court ruled that Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco unlawfully seized more than 650,000 ballots and affirmed the attorney general's constitutional authority to supervise county sheriffs, moves experts say will bolster election security and county efforts to oversee sheriffs.
The state Supreme Court last week dealt decisively with a pair of key policy challenges facing California: election integrity as the midterms approach and the power of county sheriffs in the wake of one lawman's overreach.
The justices clearly had in mind the security of the balloting as well as the highhanded behavior of some of the state's 58 elected sheriffs.
In two opinions, they metaphorically shot the sheriff and sought to make elections bulletproof.
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