Students answer the phone, ask questions, and gather all the critical details – just like in a real emergency. In an unprecedented move, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican who is running for governor, seized roughly 650,000 ballots and began conducting a recount of votes. “The Riverside County Sheriff’s Office is not equipped nor legally authorized to play the role of elections monitor. The sheriff got two warrants in February and another last week after receiving a complaint about ballot discrepancies from a Riverside County citizens’ group. The citizens’ group claimed Riverside County elections officials overstated the number of ballots counted in the November special election over Democrat-drawn congressional maps.

Source: The Guardian March 25, 2026 19:14 UTC