Vision Party swept Senate seats in this Fall’s UF Student Government election season, maintaining its majority about a year after it formed in Fall 2023.
Vision candidates earned 44 of 50 seats. Change Party candidates won 4 seats: Infinity Hall, the Keys-Springs Residential Complex, Lakeside Residential Complex and the Murphree Area.
The Tolbert Area seat tied, with 142 votes each for Vision and Change. Ties are resolved by a vote from the Senate.
Graduate and Family Housing write-in candidate Tommy Rogers received seven out of 10 votes. However, Rogers did not complete the necessary paperwork to qualify to be a senator. Unless Rogers can appeal to the Election Commission prior to its certification of election results, the seat will go to the Vision candidate Love Kumar.
Supervisor of Elections Lexi Sederopoulos reported 9,899 students turned out to vote this semester, nearly a 19% decrease from last Fall, when over 12,000 voted. However, the number is similar to the Fall 2022 elections, when Hurricane Ian spaced the first and second election days by about a week. At the time, 9,858 students voted. Hurricane Milton postponed the second day of elections this semester as well, moving it from Oct. 9 to Monday.
After UF students from SG parties – including Vision, Change and Watch Party – rallied inside the Reitz Union, the crowd waited for the results to be announced. At one point, an Apple Watch measured 102 decibels. Change candidates interlocked arms and chanted while Vision candidates jumped on chairs in support of its candidates.
Sederopoulos stood over the crowd as she began announcing the results. Vision Party members erupted with cheers after learning they kept the Senate majority.
Vision’s campaign manager, Aaron Amster, said he was really happy after election results. Amster said he’s been a part of five election campaigns.
“I’ve never seen a campaign like this,” he said. “These kids care so much. They have been tabling nonstop, 24/7, and this is the result we wanted.”
Senator-elect Maya Idiculla (Vision-off campus) said she was really excited to keep pushing a difference through legislation after winning her seat. This will be her second year as an elected senator.
“My full goal is to get [our] platform done with my entire caucus and my party and get things that we said we would get done, done,” she said.
Senator-elect Jake Runyon (Vision-Honors Village) said he felt “ecstatic” about his win. He enjoyed being able to meet new people as he tabled and won a seat after his first time campaigning.
“We put in a lot of hard work over the past few weeks,” Runyon said. “I’m looking forward to fulfilling everything that we promised and working with the people that are my constituents to make Honors Village a better place.”
Senator-elect Lucas Nadeau (Change-Key Springs) ran on adding water bottle refill stations to more floors of Key Springs, adding security cameras to laundry rooms and adding e-scooter charges to bike racks around Springs.
“I am overjoyed,” he said. “I am so proud of my district for turning out and voting for the amazing candidate of myself.”
Outgoing Senate Minority Party Leader Anamika Naidu (Change-Beaty Towers) said although Change lost, she felt proud of her party for running a strong campaign “despite two hurricanes during the election cycle.”
Nevertheless, Naidu said she felt “the hurricane made [the election] extremely unfair.”
Senator-elect Priya Schramm (Change-Lakeside) said she intends to fight for RTS bus funding, sustainability and a strong sense of camaraderie.
“My main goal is to bring my constituency, Lakeside, together as a community and make sure that we have everything we need to succeed,” she said.
Watch Party President Gavin Schwanke said “we’re ecstatic about how we did.”
Schwanke admitted that, though Watch failed to win seats, “Our goal this election was more just to get our message out.”
According to Schwanke, Watch Party will continue campaigning on election reform with plans to expand its platform for the Spring elections.
Last Tuesday, as many students fled Gainesville in anticipation of Hurricane Milton, around 5,000 others turned out to cast their ballots in Student Government election races at polling locations across campus.
Today, polls reopened, marking the second and last day of voting for the Fall 2024 SG election.
Three parties have slated candidates for some or all of the 50 Senate seats available this election: Vision Party, Change Party and Watch Party.
Tanvi Shah, a 20-year-old UF political science sophomore, plans to vote in SG elections for the first time this year. She said she supports Change but doesn’t yet know which candidates she will choose.
“I do appreciate the fact that they point out the hypocrisies within the Vision Party of where they’re allocating their funds,” Shah said.
She thinks both parties should use less aggressive methods to encourage students to vote, she said.
Gretta Burke, a 19-year-old UF pre-nursing sophomore, also plans to vote in student government elections for the first time but is unsure she will be able to make it to the polls. She said she has to study for an upcoming exam, so her busy schedule may prevent her from making her way to the ballot box.
“I don’t really know the candidates specifically,” she said. “As a party, though, I like Change more, and it’s not even necessarily because I know what they stand for as much as I’m against what Vision stands for.”
Burke said she’d like to see SG do more outreach to better understand what truly voters care about.
For his first ever election, Evan Hill, an 18-year-old UF biology freshman, said he decided to give his vote to Change because he felt its representatives presented the party the most professionally.
“Vision had a table outside Turlington Plaza, and I spoke with them,” Hill said. “They tried to connect with me on a student-o--udedentbbasis when I feel like they should’ve been professional in sharing their platform and what they had to offer.”
Sarah Chowdhury, a 22-year-old UF psychology major, also voted in a student government election for the first time this year. Last year, she felt disconnected from the candidates because she rarely saw them outside of tabling.
This year she was able to connect with Change candidate Priya Schramm “without the pressure” of buying a Tshirt opromising to vote for a certain candidate.endyll Campi, a 19-year-old UF health science freshman, was eager to vote in her first SG election. She voted for Change because she felt the party was more transparent with its views and goals.
She liked that it advocated for 24/7 Marston and more funding for student organizations.
“I hope that whatever they [Change] do, they put the students first…and stay close to what they want with what they advocate for,” she said.
Ethan Czech, an 18-year-old UF mechanical engineering freshman, decided to vote for the first time after seeing students tabling near the Honors Village in support of Vision, which led him to vote for the party.
“I just had way more information about them than the other party,” Czech said. “I don’t think I’ve ever talked to anyone from Change Party.”
Dean Fioravanti, an 18-year-old UF accounting freshman, cast his vote for Vision candidate Raustin Esfahanizadeh after Esfahanizadeh helped the freshman in getting his bike repaired by introducing him to the UF SG Bike Repair Shop.
“He was really nice,” Fioravanti said. “He told me about what he wants to do for the Murphree area… like the rain ponchos… [and] getting better ping pong paddles.”
Fioravanti said he got the impression that Esfahanizadeh really cares about the student body, which is why he voted for him.
Another student, Maybelle Perez-Medina, an 18-year-old UF computer science sophomore, was approached by Vision candidate Ava Rathet. After hearing Rathet’s initiatives for food and off-campus housing, Perez-Medina said she was convinced to vote for her.
Tyler Kroop, an 18-year-old UF economics freshman, voted for Vision candidate Dylan Cannella after hearing about his initiatives for the Graham area.
“[We live] in a dorm, an older one, [and] he wants to help out,” Kroop said. “[He wants to] get better laundry rooms, which I think is really good for us. He wants to do ice machines for the dorms, which I like a lot.”
Mark Szomstein, an 18-year-old computer science freshman, said he hopes the election results will encourage more unity amongst the student body at UF, he said. He voted for Vision.
Similarly to Szomstein, David Soto, an 18-year-old UF political science freshman, said Vision’s initiatives were better aligned with his beliefs. He did not agree with Change’s platform point regarding inclusivity spaces and said it was a part of their political agenda.
“I’m from California, and I don’t want another California college here,” Soto said.
Natalia Parras, a 19-year-old mathematics sophomore, voted for Change. She thinks Vision is more representative of Greek life, she said.
Parras voted Change because she saw the platform wanted to unionize campus workers, she said.
“When UF is such a big institution, I think it’s good to have a representative for yourself,” she said.
Turner Mooney, a 20-year-old finance junior, voted for Vision. As a member of Alpha Tau Omega, he voted to support his friends who are running.
“It’s important to have the right people in the right positions so everyone gets equal representation,” he said. “We need to have the best policies put in place for Greek life, events and how students should be going about campus.”
Mooney said he hopes students are happy about who they are voting for.
Natalie Kaufman, Juliana DeFilippo, Delia Rose Sauer, Avery Parker, Annie Wang and Sara-James Ranta contributed to this report.
