2026-09-27T10:30:29.707Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/27/politics/ballot-seizures-by-law-enforcement-is-a-wake-up-call-for-local-election-officials
加州最高法院叫停了一名右翼警长扣押并调查选票的行动，该行动基于已被证伪的选举“不符”指控。这场法律斗争帮助选举官员为11月选举期间可能出现的类似事件做好了准备。
乍德·比亚科警长今年3月从河滨县2025年一场备受关注的州重划选区公投中扣押了65万张选票。此前，联邦调查局刚在佐治亚州富尔顿县执行搜查令，获取了2020年选票——这是唐纳德·特朗普总统选举干预主张的主要目标之一。
尽管两起调查都涉及已经结束的选举，但它们引发了人们的担忧：联邦和地方执法人员可能会在2026年选举计票和认证过程中试图扣押有效选票，尤其是在特朗普及其盟友反复提出毫无根据的大规模选民欺诈主张的背景下。
例如，比亚科当时正在参与加州共和党初选，特朗普的背书仍未确定。
“选举官员是规划者。因此，即使某些情况不会发生，他们也必须考虑各种可能性，以便在万一发生时做好准备，”前司法部投票部门律师戴维·贝克尔说道，他如今为两党选举管理人员提供咨询。“他们正在考虑以前不必考虑的极端可能性。”
最令人担忧的问题是，将选票材料交给调查人员会如何破坏保管链——州和地方法规对选票处理有着严格程序，以维护公众对选举结果的信心。
加州最高法院写道：“允许执法人员不受限制地接触选票，或者允许其根据不受监管的程序秘密处理和清点选票，本身就会对选举完整性造成重大风险。”
自这两起事件发生后的数月里，州政府官员已指示地方选举管理人员，如果执法部门索要投票材料，必须及时向他们通报。一些州甚至通过法律要求必须进行通报，并对非法扣押选票的相关人员处以重罚。选举法学者一直在尝试向法官讲解选票的特殊敏感性，以便他们在考虑签发搜查选票的搜查令和传票时有所参考。
洛约拉大学法学教授贾斯汀·莱维特曾为民主党政府处理过选举问题，他预测河滨县的这场纠纷以及州法院新裁决的“明确性”将在全国产生影响。
“我认为全国没有哪位治安法官不会在处理与选举相关的搜查令时三思而后行，”莱维特说道。
在一段回应加州最高法院要求返还选票的判决的视频https://www.facebook.com/chad.bianco.3/videos/1584940199404144/ 中，比亚科辩称法院“裁定反对合法调查”，并表示他正在考虑向联邦法院提起上诉。
比亚科称，他对选票的调查是合理的，因为他收到了可能存在犯罪行为的证据，并声称法院的判决削弱了公众对选举的信心。
“当合理证据提交给执法部门，而合法调查却被法院叫停时，你指望人们如何对我们的制度抱有信心？”比亚科问道。
今年1月联邦调查局在富尔顿县的扣押行动已经让选举官员意识到，联邦政府愿意采取前所未有的措施调查选举——在特朗普提出虚假的2020年选举舞弊主张后，他曾指示联邦政府将选民调查列为优先事项。
但河滨县的搜查令凸显了新的风险：地方执法部门可能会出于自身带有政治色彩的选举调查，试图扣押选票。
警长办公室制定了由调查人员清点选票的计划；比亚科的律师今年3月告诉CNN，他的办公室在设计相关程序时咨询了“专家”并参考了“规程”，但拒绝透露更多细节。
加州民主党总检察长罗布·邦塔得知搜查令后，下令比亚科暂缓行动，由州办公室对该问题进行更深入审查。但警长仍扣押了选票，邦塔遂将其告上法庭。加州最高法院的判决（除邦塔的诉讼外，该县选民也对此次扣押提起了诉讼）指出，比亚科无视总检察长的指令违反了法律，并同时认定此次扣押行为非法。
该判决为加州下级法院未来遇到类似问题时的处理方式确立了明确的先例。不过，它对其他州的法院不具有约束力，而且这些法院在审查选票扣押案件时所依据的法律，也与导致此次周四判决的加州法律有所不同。
尽管如此，其他州的官员以及为他们提供咨询的法律专家告诉CNN，这一事件的一线希望在于，这种 tactics（策略）已经在加州得到了检验——而加州本已准备好在法庭上积极制止此类行为。邦塔的办公室还在特朗普干预选举管理的诉讼中发挥了主导作用，并表示他已在中期选举前与其他州展开沟通。
“现在是分享最佳实践的时候，以识别对我们共同民主选举制度的威胁和风险，并在各州之间做好准备，应对未来可能出现的情况，”邦塔在本周的新闻发布会上说道。
河滨县扣押选票事件发生后，加州议会通过了法律，明确缩小执法人员可以获取选票的情形，并对非法将选票从选举管理人员保管中取出的行为处以刑事处罚。
加州和康涅狄格州的新法律还要求地方辖区如果得知针对选举材料的搜查令或其他执法行动，必须迅速通知州政府官员。州政府官员发布了关于如何处理调查人员索要选票要求的指导意见，并与执法部门就调查投票的敏感性展开了沟通。
前亚利桑那州马里科帕县选举官员、现任全国选举官员协会首席项目官塔米·帕特里克表示，选举官员“正在与州总检察长、县检察官、市检察官合作，确保每个人都清楚谁真正有权接触选举程序和流程的任何环节”。
让法官了解这些敏感性也是此次工作的一部分。在其他选举法学者和前法官的参与下，加州大学洛杉矶分校选举法教授理查德·哈森发布了一份白皮书，旨在指导法官如何评估执法人员获取选票的申请。其中一项建议是，法官应考虑允许调查人员接触选票副本，而非原始选票，以维护保管链。
贝克尔表示，针对佐治亚州和河滨县事件的应对措施，可能会让其他试图在别处复制类似选票扣押行为的人有所收敛。
“我认为我们几乎不可能再看到类似事件，尤其是在后选举环境下，尽管选举官员一直在确保他们做好了准备，”贝克尔说道。
A California sheriff seized ballots. The court ruling shutting the probe will resonate nationwide
2026-09-27T10:30:29.707Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/27/politics/ballot-seizures-by-law-enforcement-is-a-wake-up-call-for-local-election-officials
The California Supreme Court shut down a right-wing sheriff’s efforts to seize and investigate ballots over debunked allegations of vote “discrepancies,” in a legal fight that has helped election officials prepare for any similar attempts during November election.
Sheriff Chad Bianco’s March seizure of 650,000 ballots from Riverside County’s 2025 election for a high-profile state redistricting referendum came on the heels of a search warrant that the FBI executed to obtain 2020 ballots from Fulton County, Georgia — a chief target of President Donald Trump’s election subversion claims.
While both investigations concern elections that had already occurred, they raised fears that federal and local agents would try to seize live ballots while the 2026 vote was still being counted and certified, particularly as Trump and his allies have repeatedly raised baseless claims of widespread voter fraud.
Bianco, for instance, was running in California in a GOP primary where Trump’s endorsement was still up for grabs.
“Election officials are planners. And so, they have to consider possibilities even if they’re not going to happen — to be ready in case they do,” said David Becker, a former Justice Department voting section attorney who now advises election administrators of both parties. “They’re considering wild possibilities that they wouldn’t have had to before.”
Chief among the concerns is how handing over those materials to investigators would break the chain of custody, as state and local regulations impose strict procedures for handling ballots to maintain public confidence in election results.
The state Supreme Court wrote that “allowing law enforcement unfettered access to ballots, or the ability to handle and count them in secret based on unregulated protocols, itself creates a substantial risk to election integrity.”
In the months since those two episodes, state officials have instructed local election administrators to alert them if law enforcement demands voting materials. Some states have even passed laws requiring that notification and imposing stiff penalties for anyone involved in an unlawful seizure of ballots. Election law scholars have attempted to educate judges about the unique concerns around ballots for when they’re considering warrants and subpoenas for voting materials.
Justin Levitt, a law professor at Loyola University who has worked on voting issues for Democratic administrations, predicted that the Riverside County fight — and the “clarity” of the new state court ruling — will have national repercussions.
“I don’t think there’s a magistrate (judge) in the country who’s not going to not think twice about a search warrant” related to elections, Levitt said.
In a videohttps://www.facebook.com/chad.bianco.3/videos/1584940199404144/ responding to the state Supreme Court’s ruling that he return the ballots, Bianco argued that the court had “ruled against lawful investigations” and said that he was exploring options to appeal to federal courts.
Bianco argued that his investigation of the ballots was justified because he was presented with evidence of a possible crime and he claimed that the court’s decision had undermined public confidence in elections.
“When reasonable evidence is brought to law enforcement and lawful investigations are shut down by the courts, how do you expect people to have faith in our systems,” Bianco asked.
The FBI’s Fulton County seizure in January had already put election officials on notice that federal government — which has been instructed by Trump, after his false 2020 election-rigging claims, to make voter probes a priority — was willing to take unprecedented steps to investigate elections.
But the Riverside County warrant highlighted a new risk: that local law enforcement would seek to seize ballots for their own politically tinged investigations into elections.
The sheriff’s office prepared a plan for the ballots to be counted by investigators; Bianco’s lawyer told CNN in March his office had consulted with “experts” and looked at “protocols” when designing the procedures but declined to go into more detail.
Once California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, caught wind of warrant, he ordered that Bianco hold off while the state office took a closer look at the issue. When the sheriff seized the ballots anyway, Bonta took him to court. The opinions issued by the California Supreme Court (in addition to Bonta’s case, voters in the county filed their own challenge to the seizure) said Bianco broke the law by ignoring the attorney general’s directives, while concluding that the seizure was unlawful.
The opinion creates a clear precedent for how lower courts in California should act if similar issues arise in the future. However, it will not bind courts in other states, and the laws those courts would be considering when reviewing seizures of ballots will be different than the California laws that led to Thursday’s ruling.
Still, officials in other states and the legal experts that advise them told CNN that a silver lining of the episode was that the tactic was tested in California — a state that was poised to act aggressively in court to shut it down. Bonta’s office has also taken a lead role in the litigation over Trump’s efforts to meddle in election administration and said he’s in conversation with other states ahead of the midterms.
“This is a time for sharing best practices to flagging threats and risks to our shared democratic election system, and to be prepared across state boundaries for what might come next,” Bonta said in a news conference this week.
In the wake of the Riverside seizures, the California legislature passed laws to explicitly narrow the circumstances when law enforcement can obtain ballots and to impose criminal penalties for anyone involved in an unlawful attempt to remove ballots from the custody of election officials.
New laws in California, as well as in Connecticut, also require local jurisdictions to quickly notify state officials if they learn of search warrants or other law enforcement actions targeting election materials. State officials have issued guidance about how to handle demands from investigators for ballots, and they engaged in conversations with law enforcement about the sensitives investigating the vote.
Election officials are “working with their state’s attorney general, with county attorneys, with city attorneys to make sure everyone understands who actually has authority and access to any part of the election procedures and processes,” said Tammy Patrick, a former Maricopa County, Arizona, election official who is now the chief programs officer for the National Association of Election Officials.
Making judges aware of the sensitivities has also been part of the effort. With the input of other election law scholars and former judges, Richard Hasen, an election law professor at University of California-Los Angeles, published a white paper seeking to guide judges on how they should assess applications from law enforcement to obtain ballots. Among its recommendations is that judges consider granting investigators access to copies of ballots, rather than the ballots themselves, to maintain chain of custody.
Becker said that the response to the Georgia and Riverside episodes may give pause to others who might want to replicate similar ballot seizures elsewhere.
“I think it’s nearly impossible we’re going to see another one of those, particularly in the post-election environment, even though election officials are making sure they’re prepared,” Becker said.
