A conservative group in late March requested all ballots from two recent elections in San Luis Obispo County and called for the Sheriff’s Office to launch an investigation into “voting irregularities” they claimed to have identified in statewide election results.

A member from the New California State Movement — a politically conservative organization committed to breaking California into two states, including a rural “New California,” — hand-delivered a letter to the SLO County Sheriff’s Office that asked the agency to look into the 2024 and 2025 elections “to either find one or more crimes ... or report to the public there is no violation of the law.”

The note also demanded SLO County Clerk-Recorder Elaina Cano retain all ballots from the two elections.

Similar letters were sent to all 58 counties in California.

In the letter, Robert Paul Preston, the president and founder of the movement, said an investigation was necessary to show what appears “to be ‘voting irregularities’ in the processing and counting of votes in the November 2025 ‘Special Election’ and the 2024 national election.”

In the three weeks since the letter was delivered, Cano said her office has fielded a flurry of questions from concerned voters who feared their ballots could be grabbed, like in Riverside County where sheriff and gubernatorial candidate Chad Bianco recently seized 650,000 ballots from the county’s Registrar of Voters.

“For the elections officials, we’re like, ‘Yeah, it’s not going to happen,’” Cano told The Tribune. “For the voters, they’re not as confident because they just watched what happened in a county in Southern California.”

Could what went down in Riverside County take place here? What evidence would SLO County officials need to launch an investigation?

The Tribune looked into these questions as part of its Reality Check series.

Conservative group requests ballots from 2024, 2025 elections

Preston told The Tribune that the New California State Movement identified “enormous irregularities” in the state’s election system after they used an algorithm that showed there were more votes counted than actual ballots.

“We think there’s fraud here, and we think we need to look at it,” he said. “Sheriffs have a duty to look at that fraud.”

Preston said the group’s top priority is for ballots from the 2024 and 2025 elections to be maintained. Typically, special election ballots — such as the 2025 Prop. 50 election — are shredded after six months, while regular election ballots are destroyed after 22 months, according to Cano.

The Tribune filed public records requests to obtain the group’s letter to the SLO County Sheriff’s Office, as well as the county’s emailed response to the group.

In the letter, Preston asked the county Clerk-Recorder’s Office for “the actual ballots,” “all paper tabulations and tabulation results,” “all electronic tabulations in whatever form maintained,” all internal office exchanges regarding the two elections, as well as communications to the Secretary of State’s Office.

The group also requested the names, addresses and phone numbers of all non-county employees who had access to “any voting machine” during the 2024 and 2025 elections.

Cano told The Tribune that the group failed to present any evidence of wrongdoing to the county and said that parts of its request were perplexing.

“They want tabulation stuff. Well, tabulation is an action, right? It’s what we do when you push the ballots through the scanner, and they tabulate,” Cano said, also pointing to the broadness of the ask for all communications, which would take many months to gather.

In its response to the letter, the county asked the group to clarify some of its requests and provide evidence of irregularities and proof of fraudulent activities.

If evidence is presented, the Sheriff’s Office then has the jurisdiction to trigger an investigation, the county wrote.

Riverside County Sheriff ordered to pause ballot investigation

On Wednesday, the California Supreme Court ordered Bianco to halt his investigation into election fraud allegations and preserve all ballots while judges look over the case, PBS reported.

Bianco originally launched the probe due to unsubstantiated claims of irregularities in the November special election, according to The New York Times reporting. He then received permission to seize and recount more than 600,000 Riverside County ballots from the Prop. 50 election after obtaining several court-approved warrants.

The investigation in Riverside County is essentially a blueprint for the New California State Movement’s requests in SLO County and elsewhere, Preston told The Tribune.

The group’s mission is to “call attention to the world that there’s major league fraud going on,” he said.

However, Cano said the deadlines for requesting a recount or formally contesting an election have passed, so it would be extremely difficult to challenge results at this point.

“If ever there is a question of fraud or irregularities or something suspicious happening, there is a process that anybody could go through during a certain time period once I’ve certified the election,” she said. “That time has way long come and gone, and nothing happened.”

According to California’s election laws, the deadline for a voter-requested recount is within five days of the county certifying the election, while the deadline to formally contest an election is generally within 30 days of election results being declared by the county.

In the case of a court-ordered recount, there must be probable cause to believe that misconduct took place that could have changed the outcome of the election, Cano said in an email, or there must be significant mistakes or system failures in the counting or handling of ballots that occurred that either raised substantial doubts or could have impacted actual results.

“In short, a court-ordered public recount is not automatic — it requires credible evidence suggesting the election results may have been affected or are unreliable,” she said.

‘No active investigation’ into election results, SLO County Sheriff’s Office says

The Sheriff’s Office’s role is to investigate criminal violations within its jurisdiction, not to oversee or administer elections in SLO County, spokesperson Grace Norris told The Tribune.

“At this time, no evidence has been provided to the Sheriff’s Office indicating that a crime has been committed related to the 2024 or 2025 elections in San Luis Obispo County,” she said in an email. “As a result, there is no active investigation.”

The Sheriff’s Office would examine any credible information or evidence regarding a potential crime if that is brought forward, she said, though election-related cases could also be reviewed or investigated by the District Attorney’s Office.

Cano said voters should not be worried about the Sheriff’s Office or outside groups getting a hold of their ballots.

“There is no indication from the Sheriff’s Office at this point that they would have any reason to come seize our ballots or any of our elections material,” she said. “For our voters, I want them to know that their ballots and their voter information is safe and secure.”

SLO Tribune’s Reality Check

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