Wrong Princess

It was voting day in the freshman English classes. Time to elect their class' homecoming princess. I passed out the ballots, gave them time to vote, and then retrieved those ballots.

Oh, I should mention that one of the candidates was a student in the class. There was some lobbying. But I didn't reveal any ballots to her. If the students wanted her to know they did or did not vote for her, that was their business.

It was also 5th period. Shortly after voting, four girls (including the homecoming princess candidate) all had to leave for a volleyball game. Two boys left for a football game. And another boy had a "race", although I'm not sure which sport that was. (Possibly cross country.) So, there was a bit of chaos while I got the rest of the class going on the rest of their work.

After the mass exodus, the door to the classroom opened again. Two girls who had left returned.

"Can I get my ballot back? I want to change my vote."

Um... They don't put names on those ballots. I had no way of finding her ballot.

"I know which one it is. I circled it a certain way."

These were not fill-in-the-blank ballots. These were circle-the-name ballots. Even harder to figure out which one belonged to her.

I suppose I could have found a ballot with who she said she voted for and had her change that one. Because there was no way I was letting her flip through all the ballots from the class. There are so many ways that could go awry.

And besides, the rest of the class was supposed to be listening to a short story on CD. I could just imagine the disruption allowing her to change her ballot would cause.

In the end, I said no. I feel a little bad about it, but not much. We're talking freshman homecoming princess. There are so many more dances after this for them.