Many students at Placer High School think that the votes for homecoming queen and king were rigged this year. Votes were counted and tallied to find the Hillmen’s future 2010 homecoming king and queen.

            “Senior ballots were counted by sophomores, juniors votes were counted by freshmen, sophomores were counted by juniors, and freshmen ballots were counted by seniors. No one counted their own class and no one was added to make the vote rigged,” stated Emily Jones, senior, ASB Vice President, and homecoming queen winner.

            The votes were counted carefully to guarantee that it was a fair, tallied count, and then thrown away by accident.

“I threw them out thinking that was what we did last year, it was just a mistake,” stated Senior Class President, Riley Stoltenburg.

Keeping the votes would prevent any complications and raising questions about names being added or taken out. Students think next year the votes should definitely be kept after the voting for one to two weeks after.

“I don’t see why the vote would be rigged in the first place. Obviously everyone put in their vote, and I’m just trusting it,” stated sophomore, Lauren Collins.

            Counters of the votes ensure that the vote was not changed. They were counted and tallied according to the slips of paper leadership passed out to all second period classes the week before homecoming week.

            “I think they were rigged, but I just heard from rumors going around. I heard people switched the names, but the people who won definitely deserved it, even if it was rigged,” commented Ashley Cook, a junior at Placer. “If they really were rigged, they should have the teachers count them instead to make sure the votes aren’t cheated, and if not teachers, then some outside source.”

            Many people don’t know exactly which classes were thought to be manipulated but students suspect the senior and junior class mostly.

“After votes were tallied, the class that counted the seniors votes had missed Darren Centi and Karly Kenworthy’s names throughout the tallies. We had to go back and add them to the list,” states Riley Stoltenburg. “There is no possible way for the voting to be rigged. Different classes counted the votes of other classes.”

This year, the votes were counted, tallied, but then thrown out on accident, which that raised questions about peoples names being added onto the list, and with no ballots left to show, it can’t be proven if the vote was actually rigged or not.