Secretary of State slams GOP governor candidate Chad Bianco’s election probe

California Secretary of State Shirley Weber has criticized Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco‘s decision to probe alleged election irregularities, amid his quest to be the Republican gubernatorial candidate.

“The Riverside County Sheriff’s Office has taken actions based on allegations that lack credible evidence and risk undermining public confidence in our elections,” Weber said on Friday.

“The sheriff’s assertion that his deputies know how to count is admirable. The fact remains that he and his deputies are not elections officials, and they do not have expertise in election administration,” she said.

Bianco has tasked deputies with looking into possible discrepancies in last November’s special election for the redistricting Proposition 50, based on allegations by citizen group called the Riverside Election Integrity Team.

During a workshop in February, the group claimed there had been 45,800 ballots counted beyond the number publicly documented in election records.

The group’s representatives are frequent speakers at Riverside County Board of Supervisors’ meetings and have made both negative and positive remarks about the county’s Office of the Registrar of Voters, its policies and practices. Chain-of-custody, ballot authentication and public access to data have been regular concerns cited by the group.

Bianco, who is currently among the top GOP contenders for the governor’s office, issued a statement saying “there is no acceptable error, small or large, in our elections, let alone a 45,000 vote difference.”

He claimed state Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta was opposed to the sheriff’s department’s pursuit of evidence, but vowed “this investigation will continue.”

Weber, a lawmaker from San Diego, suggested the sheriff was out of his depth, saying any election-related probe should be “conducted by those with the appropriate legal authority and subject matter expertise.”

“Similar claims raised in other states by individuals without election administration experience have been thoroughly reviewed and debunked,” she said. “My office has been reviewing the allegations and have thus far found them to be unsubstantiated.”

She repudiated any suggestion by Bianco that the state had engaged in “intimidation” tactics to derail the sheriff’s probe.

“My office remains fully confident in the administration of the November 2025 Statewide Special Election,” Weber said.

City News Service contributed to this article.