Written by Lyle Weems, Staff Writer
Chad Bianco, Sheriff of Riverside County, seized 650,000 citizen ballots under the pretense of biased district sectoring and fraud.
Known for his use of excessive force and corruption within the Riverside County police force, Bianco has begun efforts to spread his influence by running for the California Governor position. During his time as Sheriff, there have been increasing numbers of inmate deaths and abuse reports within prisons. Dozens of lawsuits have been filed against Bianco and the prisons for harassment and untimely deaths, as well as disproportionate attacks on minority communities. Also prevalent to his administration is a secretive and dismissive attitude toward investigation into his actions, as he claims political attack and misconduct to place his actions above critique. His abuses in Riverside County run deep as he promotes violence, ICE activity, and an invulnerable police force that stands above the law. He vows to end the sanctuary laws that maintain California’s standing as a sanctuary state, and align instead with the Trump agenda, clearly violating the interests of the state’s people and freedoms of America.
As a member of the constitutional sheriff’s movement, he claims the sheriff’s role and power should dominate above all other federal officers. Others in this movement have been incriminated with similar unjust actions in relation to vote counting. These people become obsessive over control, to the point they create false evidence of fraud in an attempt to sway elections and the hierarchy of power in their territories. The desire lies not in fairness, but in personal desire to rise above the rest and create a militaristic and overwhelming police force that can enforce the views of the sheriff, or in other words, autocracy.
Now Bianco takes an overwhelming step forward in his power abuse by seizing thousands of ballots. He has put forth unclear claims of fraud to take mass law enforcement action, setting a precedent of undermining the electoral system under his guidance. Despite no official claims of fraud and no recounting, Bianco obtained warrants, which remained sealed to avoid devaluing the basis of his claims, to seize ballots in relation to Proposition 50, which passed with overwhelming support last year and maintains that the legislature of California would redraw congressional districts for unbiased representation according to the approval of the citizens. He claimed to have been tipped off about the fraud by a citizen activist group reporting a miscounting, but the registrar of voters, Tinoco, investigated these claims and found them to be false.
Bianco then claimed his office would do a hand recount, a method prone to mistakes and easy to manipulate. He followed with a threat to seize ballots from the June 2nd Primary should he face any questioning. These actions are creating considerable distrust in both law enforcement and elections, and are blatant abuse of law enforcement power. Bianco seems to actively attempt to manipulate voting in California to maintain congressional lines drawn in Republican favor. To further the corruption, it has been revealed that Judge Kiel, who signed off on the warrants, was previously given $10,000 by Bianco in support. The integrity of elections and human rights in California lays in imminent threat under Bianco’s manipulation, and fear has grown in relation to police misconduct stands at such a high in America, that especially with presidential endorsement, Bianco has been left unchecked for far too long, and that should he become Governor, the voices of Californians will be silenced.