Did you know? Voting Mix-up causes Miss Florida crown exchange

Just a week after her coronation, the winner of the 2014 Miss Florida pageant was dethroned on Friday, when organisers said they had crowned the wrong woman after a vote-count error.

Elizabeth Fechtel, a 20-year-old student at the University of Florida, won this year’s pageant in front of nearly 2,000 spectators last Saturday in St. Petersburg, Florida. But the ballot counter didn’t see that one of the five judges had changed his mind, writing a new line up on the left-hand side of his ballot.

After the Florida mix-up came to light this week, pageant organisers sought an independent review, said Mary Sullivan, executive director of the Miss Florida pageant. “Our organisation had to do the right thing, and the right thing is to crown the young woman that was intended to be crowned,” Sullivan said.

The true Miss Florida contest winner was Victoria Cowen, a 21-year-old student at Florida State University. Fechtel is now the runner-up, and Cowen will compete in September’s Miss America contest. The two women are friends, Sullivan said, which made the conversations even harder.

Meanwhile, in Delaware, beauty contest winner Amanda Longacre was stripped of her crown as Miss Delaware this week because she will turn 25 in October, and pageant rules say contestants must be no older than 24 in 2014.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 1^st, 2014.

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