Parents: Enloe HS students excluded from ballot due to race
RALEIGH (WTVD) -- On Monday morning, LaChantal Warthaw-Ricketts' daughter logged onto a website to cast her ballot in the Student Council elections. The junior quickly learned her name wasn't on the ballot for Vice President, even though she had spent time campaigning for the position.
"These children woke up and realized 'No one can vote for me, Mom, because my name's not on the ballot,'" said Warthaw-Ricketts.
A total of four African-American juniors who were running in the election were wiped off the ballot in their respective categories.
The Wake County School District says it was human error.
Warthaw-Ricketts and parent Shirley Andre said they believe the color of their children's skin lead to the exclusion.
"There's no way it's a glitch for black kids (to be) off the ballot," said Andre. "It really hurts to see your child going through this, because they shouldn't have to."
"You have four African-American students that are not on a ballot. That points to race. That's not a technical glitch," said Warthaw-Ricketts.
The mothers showed ABC11 an email exchange with Enloe principal Scott Lyons, where he wrote this was "obviously is a mistake."
Lyons also wrote in the email, "I wanted the elections to be fair" and "we are starting the election process over from the start."
All of the candidates will have to resubmit an application to run and will have to campaign for a second time.
The mothers said it would be better to have a re-vote right away. They said the African-American kids are being harassed and ostracized.
"To have them go backwards and do this whole thing again, it disenfranchises all of the students regardless of their race," said Warthaw-Ricketts.
Enloe's principal is reportedly implementing a system of checks and balances for the new election.
It was not announced when students will vote again.
