- Laura Rose Carroll and Emily Rose Grover were charged with tampering with homecoming-queen votes.
- Carroll was an assistant principal in the same district as her daughter's high school.
- Despite - or, perhaps, because of - the tampering, Grover was crowned
homecoming queen .
An assistant principal and her 17-year-old-daughter have been charged with rigging a high school's homecoming-queen vote in the daughter's favor in October.
Laura Rose Carroll, 50, of Pensacola, Florida, was the assistant principal of the Bellview Elementary School in the Escambia County School District. Her daughter, Emily Rose Grover, was a student at Tate High School in the same district.
As assistant principal of the elementary school, Carroll had administrative access to the district's Focus student-management program to digitally record grades, disciplinary actions, schedules, and other student-life details. Access to the Focus program is heavily monitored, and users are required to change their passwords every 45 days to prevent unauthorized access to the accounts.
The district became suspicious in October after it noticed that 117 homecoming-queen votes appeared to originate from one IP address and called in the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate. The FDLE traced the IP address to Carroll's cell phone and computers owned by the Carrolls.
In all, the FDLE reported it traced 246 votes for Tate High School's homecoming court to Carroll. The FDLE also said that Carroll's daughter told multiple people that she'd accessed her mother's Focus account to cast votes.
Despite school officials becoming aware of the fraudulent votes, Carroll's daughter was still crowned homecoming queen, WIVB reported.
In addition to the homecoming-court-related offenses, authorities said there are records going back to 2019 showing that Carroll's account previously searched and accessed 339 Tate High School students' records.
The pair is charged with one count each of offenses against users of computers, computer systems, computer networks, and electronic devices; unlawful use of a two-way communications device; and criminal use of personally identifiable information - all of which are third-degree felonies.
Carroll was booked into the Escambia County Jail while her daughter was taken into custody and sent to the Escambia Regional Juvenile Detention Center.