Sheriff Roberson ends Johnson County election probe, reveals how much it cost taxpayers
Johnson County Sheriff Byron Roberson has formally ended the years-long election fraud investigation initiated by his predecessor, Calvin Hayden — drawing to a close an inquiry that produced no criminal charges but fanned flames of doubt and misinformation around local election results.
Hayden, a Republican who left office in January, opened the investigation in the fall of 2021 amid baseless theories that fraud somehow tainted the 2020 election results in Johnson County, which went for former President Joe Biden over President Donald Trump that year.
The investigation ultimately consumed roughly 880 hours of work time and cost $88,000, Roberson announced Tuesday. Roberson, a Democrat who won the November election, said he closed the case on Jan. 30.
“We recognize the importance of rebuilding public trust and remain committed to serving our community with integrity,” Roberson said in a statement. “As a professional organization, we will continue to learn, grow, and strengthen our relationship with the citizens of Johnson County.”
“While this investigation has concluded, our dedication to ensuring safety, fairness, and respect for every individual remains our highest priority.”
The Johnson County Sheriff’s Office also released additional information about the investigation on Tuesday, saying that no warrants were filed or executed. In 2022 the sheriff’s office allocated $50,000 from its budget for software to aid in the inquiry, the sheriff’s office said, and several detectives conducted 24/7 surveillance of ballot boxes in the lead-up to the 2022 primary election.
Ultimately, the sheriff’s office received more than 100 election fraud complaints — from three people.
A single case, alleging “obstructing of voting privilege,” was submitted to Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe, a Republican. He declined to prosecute.
Hayden, who no longer holds elected office, didn’t immediately answer a call or respond to a text message Tuesday evening.
The election investigation came to define Hayden’s second term as sheriff. A former county commissioner, Hayden became increasingly associated with the election denialism movement and spoke at far-right events and conferences.
But Hayden’s intense focus on the inquiry angered a wide swath of Johnson County residents, triggering a GOP primary challenge from Doug Bedford, a former undersheriff. While Bedford beat Hayden in the August 2024 primary election, Roberson won in the November election, becoming the county’s first Democratic sheriff in nearly a century.
Johnson County Board of Commissioners Chair Mike Kelly told The Star on Wednesday morning that Roberson finishing the investigation “was a campaign promise made and a campaign promise fulfilled.”
Roberson had been expected to formally end the investigation. Hayden himself had said this past summer that the investigation was no longer active as he fought for his political life.
Still, Tuesday’s announcement was an exclamation point at the end of a strange and extraordinary saga in Johnson County.
“I think we are already as a county reaping the benefits from [Roberson’s election]. I appreciate the people of Johnson County in both August and November that they rejected the kind of extremism that found itself in the Sheriff’s Department as it relates to the election fraud investigation and the damage that it caused in trust in our local institutions,” Kelly said.
While he was not surprised that there was a large expense of taxpayer dollars put into this investigation, “it was nice to have that confirmed” by the sheriff’s office, he said.
“I felt that this investigation was a huge disservice to those men and women who risk their lives everyday for an elected official to degrade their important work for political theater and misinformation,” Kelly said. “So I’m glad it’s come to a close.”
Hayden kept a tight lid on details of the investigation over the last few years, despite regularly discussing the probe at conservative events. But his investigation appeared centered on Konnech, an election software company that called the investigation “baseless.”
Los Angeles County has agreed to pay $5 million to Konnech CEO Eugene Yu, who sued over civil rights violations after he was arrested there in 2022 on accusations that he illegally stored poll worker data in China. The case was dropped a few weeks later, with the district attorney citing “potential bias” in the investigation.
Johnson County had used Konnech’s software to help manage election workers; the program had nothing to do with voting or voting information. The county stopped using the software in 2022.
Konnech earlier last year warned Hayden that he should be careful about continuing to make public statements about the company, saying doing so could result in “serious consequences.”
The Star’s Taylor O’Connor contributed reporting
This story was originally published February 4, 2025 at 6:10 PM.
