UCLA Professors Draft Rules For Judges On Ballot Seizures
Richard Hasen and Shelby Wayment published the September 9 guide after real seizures in Georgia and California already broke ballot custody chains.
- Sheriff Chad Bianco seized 650,000 ballots from California's 2025 election, drawing a state Supreme Court halt.
- The FBI seized 2020 Fulton County, Georgia voting records on an affidavit built on debunked claims.
- Its core fix: give police copies of ballots, never the originals, to protect custody.
Why it matters: This guide arrives only after ballots were already seized, trailing the very precedent it was meant to prevent.
UCLA Safeguarding Democracy Project — "A Judicial Guide to Search Warrants Seeking Election Materials" (Sept 9, 2026) ↗ · Sep 9, 20269/9/26