Justin Levitt
Role at the time: Professor of law at Loyola Law School and election law scholar, writing in Lawfare
Condemned
Response to this claim
The Riverside County Sheriff's Office lawfully seized the county's Proposition 50 ballots and other election materials under search warrants issued by a judge, because Elections Code section 15551(d) can be read to permit a seizure under a valid judicial warrant.
“The applications, like earlier investigations in Riverside, identified no probable cause to believe that the ballots to be seized would yield evidence of any criminal act. And that makes the warrants not only improper but also a misplaced displacement of authority from one sphere to another that the California Supreme Court can and should address.”