California bans law enforcement from seizing ballots without a court order

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 73 on May 27, 2026, six days before California's June 2 statewide primary. The law took effect immediately under an , a California constitutional provision that lets a bill become law the moment the governor signs it, provided a two-thirds supermajority in both chambers approves. SB73 makes it a crime, punishable by a $1,000 fine and up to three years in prison, for any person to knowingly take a package of voted ballots from the custody of election officials. Civil penalties of up to $50,000 apply for ballot custody violations.

The law prohibits law enforcement, including federal agents, from accessing voter rolls, voting equipment, or certified voting technology without a court order or an active investigation into specific California election-law violations. It bars peace officers from being stationed at polling places without authorization, and it directs the California Attorney General to issue guidance to county election officials on how to respond when law enforcement demands access to election materials.

The direct trigger for SB73 was Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco's seizure of 650,000 ballots from the county registrar's office on February 26, 2026. Bianco, a Republican candidate for governor, executed search warrants on the registrar after a local citizens' group alleged a discrepancy of roughly 45,000 votes in the November 2025 Proposition 50 special election, a redistricting measure. The county's top elections official, Art Tinoco, told Riverside supervisors in February that the citizens' group had used flawed and incomplete data; the actual variance was about 103 votes, or 0.016%, of all ballots cast.

Bianco obtained three warrants from Riverside County Judge Jay Kiel, whom Bianco had endorsed when Kiel ran for the bench in 2022. The warrants were sealed at the sheriff's request. CalMatters went to court to unseal them and reported that they contained no direct evidence of voter fraud.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a legal challenge to Bianco's seizure and reached a standstill agreement while the California Supreme Court took over the case. On April 8, 2026, the California Supreme Court ordered Bianco to pause his investigation and preserve the seized ballots. Bonta called the seizure unprecedented and said it was designed to sow distrust in elections. Senator Cervantes noted that even after the court halted the probe and the ballots were eventually returned, the over those 650,000 ballots had been permanently broken.

The Campaign Legal Center filed an amicus brief before the California Supreme Court on behalf of Common Cause and the League of Women Voters of California, arguing that Bianco's actions violated California law requiring public officials to maintain clear over election materials and ensuring only trained election officials conduct recounts and audits.

SB73 was authored by Senators Sabrina Cervantes (D-Riverside) and Tom Umberg (D-Orange County) and Assemblymember Gail Pellerin (D-Santa Cruz). Cervantes represents the same Riverside County district where Bianco serves as sheriff. Umberg said: "When the President says he is going to disrupt an election, I believe him. A successful effort to interfere in an election is what first motivated me to run for office 36 years ago. It is shocking and deeply troubling that people are still willing to threaten the very foundation of our democracy."

The law also requires the California Department of Justice to issue guidance to county election officials on how to respond to law enforcement requests for access to ballot processing areas. It authorizes the Attorney General or Secretary of State to seek court orders to stop unauthorized law enforcement deployments at voting locations or county elections offices.

Newsom placed SB73 in a broader national context. The FBI, under the Trump administration, seized 700 boxes of election materials from Fulton County, Georgia's elections warehouse in January 2026, the county at the center of Trump's false claims that fraud cost him the 2020 race. NPR reviewed the FBI affidavit and found investigators had omitted key findings from previous state inquiries that rejected the fraud allegations. Georgia's 2020 votes were counted three times, including once by hand, each time confirming Biden's win.

The governor's press release also cited Trump-aligned efforts to deploy armed federal personnel near election sites and to seek access to voter rolls in Democratic-led states. Newsom said he expected Trump's administration to try to meddle in California's June 2 primary: "We have to be prepared for everything because there's no rules anymore with the Trump administration."

At the signing, Newsom called out what he described as "legitimate anxiety" about the pattern of behavior unfolding across Democratic-led states. Newsom said: "California will not allow our elections to be commandeered by political intimidation, abuse of power, or chaotic interference from extremists chasing conspiracy theories. This law protects voters, election workers, and the integrity of the democratic process from election-deniers who want to undermine democracy."

Newsom also noted the concrete enforcement stakes: "We have to clarify the rules of engagement. That's why this legislation is important. There are fines associated with this and jail time, three years." The governor's press release listed a pattern of Trump administration election-related actions stretching back to the 2020 election, including the fake-electors scheme, pressure on Georgia's Secretary of State to "find" votes, and sweeping pardons for January 6 participants.

Bianco's ballot seizure put California in a legal gray zone that SB73 is designed to eliminate. Before the law, California election officials had no clear statutory authority to refuse law enforcement demands for access to ballots, voter lists, or voting equipment, even when they believed those demands were improper. Democracy Docket reported in March 2026 that election officials across the country were in the dark about how to respond when law enforcement arrived with a warrant for election materials.

The Brennan Center for Justice published an analysis finding that ballot seizures based on baseless allegations had become a recurring pattern in jurisdictions where local law enforcement officers had embraced election-denial claims. SB73 puts California in a distinct position: it is the first state to make unauthorized ballot seizure a criminal offense and to require a court order before law enforcement can access voting infrastructure.

The right-of-center critique of SB73 centers on law enforcement authority. Fox News framed the seizure as a sheriff investigating legitimate election irregularities over the objection of partisan state officials. One America News reported Newsom was "limiting law enforcement access to California ballots." The WLT Report characterized SB73 as "blocking federal election oversight."

Bianco called the legal effort to halt his investigation "politically motivated." His defenders argued that a law enforcement officer with a valid warrant from a sitting judge was exercising standard investigative authority, and that SB73 effectively insulates election officials from criminal accountability. Trump administration officials said they had no plans to send immigration agents to polling locations but did not address broader access to election systems and voter data.

Prism News described SB73 as a model that other Democratic-led states could adopt ahead of the November 2026 midterm elections. California's large vote-by-mail system, which sends every registered voter a ballot automatically, makes chain-of-custody disputes particularly consequential: ballots travel through the mail, drop boxes, and processing centers before they are counted, creating many potential intervention points.

Attorney General Bonta is separately sponsoring AB 1664, which would require local election officials to notify the AG and Secretary of State within one business day after becoming aware of a warrant or law enforcement investigation involving election records or voting systems. Together, SB73 and AB 1664 form a two-layer response: SB73 criminalizes unauthorized seizures and access; AB 1664 creates a reporting and response mechanism so the state can intervene before chain of custody breaks.