High crimes in Florida: high school homecoming queen voter fraud

I don't normally watch Good Morning America, but the other day, when I was volunteering in the Resource Center at St. Francis House, a Boston day shelter (and a lot more) where I've been involved for many years, they had it on. And in between signing guests up for showers and handing out toothbrushes, I caught a segment.

The story involved a Florida woman, Laura Carroll, and her teenage daughter Emily Grover, who have been accused of using the mother's systems access - the mom is - make that was - an assistant principal at an elementary school in the district - to rig the vote in last fall's homecoming queen election at Pensacola's J.M. Tate High School.

Emily Grover won.

Investigators found that in October, hundreds of votes for the school's homecoming court were flagged as fraudulent, the news release said. There were 117 votes from the same IP address within a short period of time, the investigation found.

That's when investigators found evidence of unauthorized access to the system linked to Carroll's cellphone and computers at her home. There were 246 votes cast for homecoming court from those devices. (Source: ABC-NY)

Don't get me going on homecoming queen to begin with. Maybe I don't get it because I went to an all-girls high school. Make that an all-girls high school in Massachusetts, where things like high school homecoming queen weren't exactly a thing. Even if I had been the sort of girl who was interested in being homecoming queen. 

But can you imagine stuffing the electronic ballot box for homecoming queen? Not to mention being in a school system that does fraud investigations of homecoming queen elections?

Yowza!

I guess it could be worse. Remember the Texas cheerleader mom who tried to hire a hitman to do in the mother of the girl who edged out her daughter for the final spot on the cheer squad?

Still, it is just unfathomable to me that someone would be so eager to win an election for homecoming queen that they'd do this.

Mother and daughter deny their guilt. Legal analysts suggest that it will be difficult to overcome evidence like hundreds of ballots cast from Laura Carroll's phone and computers.

And there's also the matter of the multiple statements the prosecutors have from students who claim that Emily Grover had, for years, bragged about poking around the personal files of fellow students. (There are no allegations that Emily changed grades or copied exams. At least none that I've seen.)

There are many elements to this case that strike me as absurd - beyond the ludicrous notion that someone would cheat to be crowned homecoming queen.

For one, although Emily Grover was "only" 17 when the virtual ballot box was stuffed, prosecutors and Florida have decided to try her as an adult. And she and her mother are facing felony charges that could put them both in prison for years.

Each is charged with offenses against users of computers, computer systems, computer networks and electronic devices; unlawful use of a two-way communications device; criminal use of personally identifiable information and conspiracy to commit those offenses.

This is likely a tactic to get the duo to plead to a lesser charge. Even for Florida, it would seem ridiculous for either of them to do jail time. (Unless there's more to this than has been revealed.) So far, they're both digging their heels in, proclaiming their innocence, and demanding a trial. One point that they have made is that Emily had enough votes to win even without the fake votes. (Not that much of a defense...)

It's certainly possible that Laura Carroll and Emily Grover are being framed. The IP address in the home does point to an inside job. Cherchez a jealous sibling?

It's also possible that Lauara Carroll had no idea that her daughter was being a jerk messing around with the login credentials that assistant principal mom carelessly left around. (Seriously, what kind of assistant principal would give her kid her professional userid and password and tell her to browse to her heart's content?)

In any case, Emily was kicked out of school; Laura was fired. If they do go to court and are acquitted, they'll no doubt be in fighting form. Bring on the lawsuits. If they did it: shame on them. And there's sure plenty of shame coming their way.

Meanwhile, if Emily Grover did, indeed, hack into the system and nose around where she shouldn't have been, if she did, indeed, cast some insurance votes to ensure that she'd be crowned queen, another incident at J.M. Tate High School suggests that she'd not the only nasty piece of baggage at that school:

Since this happened, another controversy has hit the school that involves the yearbook. It was released weeks ago and a controversial photo was printed in the yearbook showing Emily Grover in a photo with numerous other girls with an image of a horse’s backside superimposed over her face. (Source: News4Jax)

Maybe Emily Grover is a horse's ass. But so are the a-holes who made this edit to the yearbook. And what's with adult supervision at this highschool? Jeez Louise.

My class wanted to dedicate our yearbook to "The Fat Lady." 

If you recall your J.D. Salinger, in Franny and Zooey, Seymour Glass tells Zooey that, whenever he's faced with a difficult or irritating task, he should "do it for the Fat Lady."

And who is this Fat Lady?

There isn't anyone anywhere that isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. Don't you know that? Don't you know that goddam secret yet? And don't you know — listen to me, now — don't you know who that Fat Lady really is?... Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It's Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy. 

Our class in general, and the yearbook club in particular, were very much into J.D. Salinger and Christ. So our dedication was a natural.

But the nuns wouldn't let us do it. Not only would they not let us say "goddam". They also told us that if we used "Fat Lady" that some alumnae might be offended.

Whatever. We ended up dedicating our yearbook to Everyman. (Remember: all girls school. Our school song also talked about "lighting the light of brotherhood.") As in Everyman = Christ.

Not in a million years - even without the nuns looking over our shoulders - would we have superimposed a horse's ass over anyone's face. 

Nasty pieces of work, those yearbook kids. Despicable. They all need a kick in the ass. 

And unless mother and/or child changed grades or something truly nefarious, I don't see why either one should be saddled with a felony conviction. Especially a world where there's a reasonable likelihood that teen killer Kyle Rittenhouse will go free, this sure seems unreasonable. 

What a world...