In a shocking and unprecedented twist of fate, the wildly popular Squirrel Party has lost the Fall 2018 Student Government election by a wide margin. Despite all projections of UF’s Student Government results created by bored Political Science majors, expectations were defied as the Impact Party received just enough votes to claim the senate majority.
Sophomore Sustainability Studies major Jessica Wong was shocked to learn of the Squirrel Party’s loss, after hearing that their popularity had been climbing in the official polls.
“I always see squirrels around Turlington and the Reitz North Lawn promoting their party stances. I assumed they had votes stashed away for election season.”
Various explanations have been offered attempting to explain the Squirrel Party’s mind-boggling loss. While the party is widely recognized to be the most active and long-lasting political organizations on campus, the belief that their victory was secure may have lowered their voter turnout.
Vote tallies released later in the day supported the assumption that the Squirrel Party had been the most popular candidate, with write-ins outranking the other parties combined. Unfortunately, as the vast majority of these votes were just claw and tooth marks from campus squirrels, most of whom are not tuition-paying students, their votes were not counted.
When asked to comment on student government election suffrage for squirrels, the Squirrel Party member being interviewed bolted up a tree, clearly taking the loss badly.
Despite the crushing defeat, the Squirrel Party still plans on business as usual. Unlike other parties, Squirrel Party members are visible and active in campus green areas all year round, not just election season Their popular policy points such as banning flyering (to save trees) and providing all students with free trail mix will continue to make them a formidable opponent in future elections.