The UCLA Voting Rights Project on Wednesday filed an original writ petition (Cervantes v. Bianco) asking the California Supreme Court to order a county sheriff (and Republican gubernatorial candidate) to return over 600,000 ballots cast in the county at the November 2025 election. Hailey Branson-Potts reported for Los Angeles Times that the sheriff seized the ballots last month “to determine, he says, whether they were fraudulently counted.”
Counsel on the writ petition includes Xavier Becerra, identified as Senior Advisor and Voting Rights Counsel. Becerra is, among other things, a former California Attorney General and former United States Secretary of Health and Human Services.
The sheriff filed a preliminary opposition on Thursday. (We haven’t been able to find a copy of it online.) On Friday, the Voting Rights Project filed a letter informing of a recent additional seizure of election materials.
Also on Friday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a partially redacted petition for review and for an emergency stay (Attorney General v. Bianco), following Tuesday’s summary denial of his writ petition by the Fourth District, Division Two, Court of Appeal. (Division Two’s order said, “Petitioner has failed to demonstrate he lacks an adequate remedy in the superior court.”) The petition for review alleges the sheriff has disregarded the Attorney General’s directives to pause the sheriff’s investigation and to preserve the seized materials.
