Cover Story:

Royalty results stand in re-vote

By Samantha Matras

News Editor

      

    Suspense grew among students competing to be king or queen. At the homecoming dance, held at the Florida Aquarium on Oct. 10, the candidates all mentally crossed their fingers, hoping their name would be announced so they could descend the stairs and be donned with a crown and the title that comes along with it.

 

    When the names were called, Austin Chin and Courtney King were proclaimed the winners.

 

    But the glory of being king and queen quickly lost some of its luster when, the following week, word spread throughout the campus that the results had been rigged.

 

    Here's what happened:

 

    Voting for the homecoming court took place in the library. Students had to present their ID in order to vote. Voting was done via computer, and SGA members monitored the voting. However, someone still found a way to cheat.

 

    Students voted for their class and for the senior class through a Web site.

 

    The final tally showed that Chin won the title of the king with a total of 600 votes, including 500 from seniors. King, meanwhile, was named queen with a total of 708 votes, including 521 from seniors.

 

    This is where the problem presides: There are fewer than 450 seniors at HHS.

 

    School officials don't know exactly what happened, but Assistant Principal for Administration Bertha Baker explains one likely theory.

 

    "One or more students got a hold of the URL web address [of the online voting site] and voted over and over for who they wished," Baker said.

 

    SGA sponser YuLing Schuchert said a Web site named QuestionPro was used in the election.

 

    "I activated the Web site before A lunch and didn't deactivate it until C lunch," Schuchert said.

 

    This means that even during the time span between the different lunches students were able to vote.

 

    "This may have been the downfall and where I went wrong," Schuchert said.

 

    Beyond the telling numbers, cheating was confirmed by various sources.

 

    "I actually found out first from Courtney who came in Monday morning before school started," Schuchert said. "She said that she heard that there may have been cheating [in the homecoming court]."

 

    "I found out the night of, before homecoming," King said. "It really upset me and I was offended people thought that I couldn't win without cheating."

 

    Chin on the other hand, said he knew cheating took place before homecoming.

 

    "I didn't really care. It shows that my friends would put themselves in possible trouble to get me to win," Chin said.

 

    Although both King and Chin found out that there had been cheating in their favor, neither was completely confident that they could win.

 

    "I still didn't think I was going to win. I wasn't sure if it [the news of cheating] was just a joke," King said.

 

    King said she knew who did it but would not tell The Red & Black; Chin denied having knowledge of who was behind the voting scandal.

 

    Since there is no way of knowing what the true results were without the cheating, the resolution was reached was to hold a revote.

 

    "We discussed it in SGA and decided if someone filed a complaint that there would be a re-vote," said a student body president Bryan Smith.

 

    While some SGA students were in favor for a re-vote and others not, it was decided it would be nessecery during a meeting with the senior homecoming court candidates.

 

    Principal William Orr, Schuchert and Baker were all present during the homecoming court meeting where they sought a solution to the cheating scandal.

 

    "It seemed really awkward and tense," King said. "I felt like I could feel the hatred coming from the others."

 

    For Chin, the meeting was a bit initimidating and he was just anxious as to what would play out. "It was sort of scary that Dr. Orr was there. It was the first time I've ever felt like I was in trouble," Chin said.

 

    Marc Papy, first runner up for king, was just as curious as to what repercussions were to be upheld in the meeting. "I was first to say we should have a re-vote," Papy said.

 

    The revote was held Oct. 28, using paper ballots. The results, which were announced the following day at the senior panoramic photo shoot, show that King and Chin won yet again.

 

    Had other people won, they would have been co-king and co-queen, a solution  Papy had supported but queen candidate Tyzsa Sunday opposed.

 

    "I personally wouldn't want to share a crown," Sunday said.

 

    Queen candidate Jessica Norton said the original winners should not get to run again.

 

    "Even if they didn't [personally] cheat, they should be taken off the ballot," Norton said. "It's like saying you can cheat and still win."

 

    When she announced that King and Chin had won the re-vote, Baker told the seniors that the shenanigans had led to a "hollow victory" for King and Chin.

 

    The penalty for the cheaters was not dicussed at the meeting, but Baker seems certain as to what should happen to them.

 

    "They will be suspended," Baker said. "They have tarnished the whole homecoming festivities and have taken the glory out of it,"

 

    But unless someone comes foreward, there is no way in finding out who did it, Baker said.

 

    Even if the results turned out differently, some candidates said that if they did win the re-vote the specialwill not be at all the same.

 

    Jose Figuerdo, who ran for king, thought the sitauation shoueld be droppend all together. "Nothing is going to be the same; we're not going to get to go to senior homecoming again."