Students at Vista Murrieta High School learned all about the seamy underbelly of politics this year after it was revealed on Friday that a faculty adviser rigged the election for class president and two other races.

In an email blast sent to parents, Principal Mick Wager said the company that handled the election confirmed that fraudulent votes changed the outcome of races for 2019 Class President, 2019 Secretary and 2018 Class President.

“An audit conducted by the electronic voting service has verified that no other election outcomes were affected by the voting irregularities,” he wrote. “This is a very unfortunate and disappointing situation, and I regret the impact it has had on the students involved and the student body as a whole.”

Karen Parris, spokeswoman for the Murrieta Valley Unified School District, said the adviser has stepped down from the position but she did not say whether the person has been fired or placed on leave, citing the confidentiality districts are afforded in personnel matters.

On Monday, June 19, the school’s website listed Denise Peterson as a teacher who had an ASB class on her schedule. The page was updated Tuesday to remove the ASB class as well as her entire schedule. Peterson did not immediately respond to an email to her school account.

Parris, who declined to identify the adviser who took responsibility for casting the fraudulent votes, said the person had held the job for about a year.

“Obviously it was a serious lapse in judgment and the school is committed to righting the wrong,” she said.

Parris said the students who had earlier been announced as the winners of the three races will still be allowed to participate in the ASB — which has been honored on the state and national level in recent years — in different roles.

She also said the district has instituted new policies — which she wouldn’t divulge — to prevent a repeat of the vote manipulation.

Wade Sine, a Vista Murrieta parent, said Monday that he helped uncover the vote discrepancies after getting information showing voting results that included the time the vote was cast and the IP address used to access the voting company’s website.

Sine said he attended meetings with Peterson and other school officials during the investigation and identified Peterson as the adviser.

Many of the votes, he said, were made at 10:30 p.m. or later, in 40-second increments, by someone who appeared to be going down a list alphabetically and voting for certain candidates.

He grew suspicious after he started hearing from people about irregularities after the results were posted, which seemed to undercount support for a member of a group of conservative male students who had run in previous school elections, he said.

There have been similar cases in Southern California, such as the widely-publicized scandal at Troy High School in Fullerton, and fictional tales of school vote chicanery — Alexander Payne’s “Election” stands as the high-water mark — but this was the first incident for Murrieta Valley Unified, Parris said.

Sine said the school should redo this year’s election in case there were other fake votes that weren’t caught during the audit but the school and district have appeared to closed the book on the case.