The cupcakes were frosted, the smiles were plastered on, and the voices of candidates were as loud as they could be. The hopeful king and queen triumphed. But after the halftime ceremony on homecoming night, would waterfalls of regret rain over royalty?
A newly found fault in the school’s voting system has caused controversy among staff and students because of last month’s homecoming king and queen elections.
Assistant Principal Gamal Salama, who deals with disciplinary issues, said improvement in the system is possible. “But if one more incident like this happens again, we could just go back to traditional ballots.”
Before royalty was announced at the Sept. 21 football game, the school buzzed with rumors of queen bees committing “disheartening” acts, according to P.E. coach Rosslyn Halekakis.
A king and a queen were crowned. As the school erupted with excitement for the winners, some sat down in disappointment.
“I heard friends of candidates were approaching students with their phones,” said queen candidate Alexus Raquel. “Supposedly they were like asking for their I.D.’s. It’s basically like they’re taking their votes.”
Junior Nicole Nuno can vouch for this rumor, only with a little bit of a twist. Apparently, one of Raquel’s friends asked Nuno for her I.D. during her fifth period. “Yeah, that happened to me,” Nuno said. “I wanted Linda Torres and Yael.”
Nuno would soon find herself in an awkward situation. “Jazelle did approach me with her phone and she was like ‘I’ll vote for you.’” I didn’t know she was going to vote for Alexus.”
Raquel doesn’t recall asking her friends to do anything other than pass out cupcakes and round up votes the fair way. “If they did that that was their choice.”
Junior Jazelle Flores responded by saying,”I definitely didn’t participate in this misfortunate voting event. I do feel it was wrong because other candidates deserved those votes.” She continued, “Candidates like Alexus Raquel could’ve used those votes.”
An I.P. address used to vote was traced back to a T-Mobile phone. Next to the multitude of numbers was Nuno’s voting information. It stated that she had voted for Alexus Raquel for queen and Albert Garcia for king around the time Nuno said Flores voted for her. “I have an HTC Sensation from T-Mobile,” said Flores.
Salama’s . “It’s more like giving your right away,” he said, “rather than stealing identities.”
”It’s not right to give your vote for candidates to use,” he said. In his eyes the voters are as much at fault as the candidates.
“They’re at fault for asking,” Salama said, reverting back to the morals of candidates. If caught, “I believe they should be disqualified.”
The faults in the system are now apparent to Salama. For this reason, he believes the traditional way of voting is still an option.
However, though the current system is deemed flawed, in the eyes of Halekakis, the paper and pen way of voting is far in the past. She even compared that way of voting to the “oldness” of the Smithsonian Institute. “It’s just too ancient,” she said.
She admits that the situation is “major in the sense that it’s (the students’) choice,” to give up voting rights.
In turn, Halekakis is still a strong believer in the voting system she pushed to be accepted. “The system is so precise,” she said. “Instantly, bam! There’s your results.”
History teacher Tara Hayes’s concern for the freshman is high because she doesn’t want them to be exposed to a new school without having their voice heard.
“We definitely don’t want (them) to be intimidated into not voting.”
“Kids (have got to) know that they’ve (got to) take pride in their school,” said Halekakis. “It’s a privilege to vote.” Halekakis believes no one should be deprived of giving their vote. She also believes that no one should let this deprivation take place.
Although they’re in agreement about students and voting, Hayes thinks differently about the system. ”Until they can fix the issue, maybe going back to traditional ballots would be best.”
