Gerrymandering in UF Student Government: A Statistical Overview of Corruption

Last year was a historic year for the independent parties in UF Student Government. For the first time in the one hundred years, an independent party secured the majority of the senate seats. However, in an effort to reconsolidate its power, the System redrew the election maps of off campus voting districts. Gerrymandering, a tool used to rig elections across the United States is now being explicitly used to rig the outcome of a UF Student Government election in favor of the new System party, Vision Party.

The goal of this article is to provide a statistical overview of UF’s Fall 2023 Student Government Elections, proving the existence of the System through data analysis and highlighting the undemocratic impact of gerrymandering. This article will be split into the follow sections:

  1. Historical Overview and Basics of UF Student Government Elections
  2. Gerrymandering Background
  3. Analysis of Independent Parties Senate Seats
  4. Needed Turnout to Overcome Gerrymandering

Historical Overview and Basics UF Student Government Elections

What is meant by an “independent party?” For the last one hundred years, UF’s student government has been historically dominated by a political machine composed of Greek houses, multicultural organizations, and Florida Blue Key known as “the System.” The most intense study of The System is provided in David Bradshaw’s 2013 dissertation. The System coerces members of Greek houses and certain student organizations to vote in student government elections, punishing non-voters with the threat of withholding food like chicken parmesan. It is also known for “selling” certain student government positions such as Student Body President, Vice President and Treasurer to the Greek house with the highest influence and most funds contributed to the campaign. An independent party is any student government party who is not actively supported by the System, i.e. is not supported by the coercive voter tactics used within Greek houses and certain social organizations.

This article will make use of UF Student Government Election Data from the year 2010 up into the present (2023). Since 2010 there have been four major independent parties: Students Party (2010–2013), Access Party (2014–2016), Inspire Party (2017–2019) and Change Party (2020-Present). Each academic year, one hundred senate seats for UF Student Government are put up for election; the below graph displays the number of Senate seats won by the independent party in that particular year.

Change Party is the first independent party to pass the fifty senate seat mark in an academic year in recent history, and in fact since the founding of UF Student Government. During each academic year, two elections take place. During the Fall semester, fifty senate seats are put up for election based on where students live. For example, Murphee receives one seat while for off campus voted in districts based on zip code. For example, District D encompassed all off campus students living in the zip code 32608 and held twelve seats. During the spring semester, another fifty senate seats are put up for election and they are based on major. For example, the College of Liberal Arts and Science receives 8 senate seats.

The gerrymandering that has taken place recently pertains to the fall election cycle, when the fifty senate seats are contingent on where students live.

Gerrymandering Background

Historically, each on-campus dorm received one seat, and off campus students split into districts based on zip codes, receiving seats proportionally by zip code population. Some form of the district system has been in place since the 1970s, with District A, B, C and D, and District E (not listed below) representing all students who live outside of Gainesville.

District D is the largest off campus district with twelve senate seats because most UF students live in zip code 32608. On election day, students who live in 32608 select twelve people on the ballot who they want to represent them. Now after fifty years of precedent, and after an independent party (Change) won control of the senate, a Gator/Vision Party-stacked Supreme Court abolished the district system. The ruling, Re: Fall 2023 Election Map, combines Districts A, B, C, D and E into a single district of thirty-seven seats.

The new maps mean every off campus student will select and vote for thirty-seven people to represent them.This sudden change in precedent is inexplicably linked to the recent upheaval of one hundred years of political machinery in UF Student Government, and has the goal of cementing the corruption back into place. The next section of this paper will show how the success of the independent parties was historically linked to District C and D, and therefore how their eradication is a clear political attempt at gerrymandering.

The key paradigm to understand in UF Student Government Elections is that District A contains sorority row, and District B contains fraternity row. Therefore, because the system primarily mobilizes Greek houses, they have never lost a District A or B seat in a Senate election since the district model was implemented. With this in mind, the key now is to understand how independent parties have continued to have a presence in UF Student Government despite the inability to win senate seats in District A and District B. This will provide insight into how an independent party can win in the new gerrymandered election map.

Analysis of Independent Parties Senate Seats

The below graph is a breakdown of seats won by independent parties in fall election years. Note that there is not a single seat in A or B as stated in the previous section.

District D (zip code 32608) is a key district of the independent movement, with several independent parties securing a majority of their Senate seats and representation through District D. Furthermore, in particularly good years (2017, 2019 and 2022), District C has been won by independents. The District model was key to the independent movement’s success because the System (now Gator/Vision) has only able to effectively mobilize/coerce people who lived in Districts A and B.

The level of mobilization and coercion is seen in the extremely high turnout of District A and District B, despite District C and D having nearly the same population. District A and B are allocated seventeen seats, while District C and D are allocated eighteen seats because more UF Students live in District C and D. Therefore, in a normal election where every student is equally incentivized to vote, one would expect voter turnout from District A and B to be slightly less than voter turnout for District C and D.

However, this is not the case. Every student is not equally incentivized to vote due to the coercion used by the System. Below is the percentage of votes cast in each District.

Total Voter Turnout In Fall 2022 by District

District A — 3431, District B — 1531, District C — 708, District D — 854

District A and B make up 50% of total voter turnout, while C and D only make up 15% of total voter turnout. There is a statistically significant difference in turnout between District A and District D, with District D making up only 8.7% of total turnout despite having a higher population of UF students than District A, which makes up 34.8% of total turnout.

Furthermore, the percentages do not do the stark difference in turnout justice. In the Fall 2022 election, 9,858 students voted. 3,431 UF student voters were from District A, while only 854 were from District D. This emphasizes the level of coercion and mobilization power used by the system at the time known as Gator Party (now Vision) during the Fall 2022 election. In addition, the astonishing relative turnout of District A and District B is not a fluke, but a historical trend.

At no point in the last thirteen years of fall election cycles of UF Student Government has the voter turnout of District C plus District D made up more than 20% of the total turnout. In contrast, the voter turnout of District A plus District B has continually hovered around 50% of total voter turnout.

To reiterate, more UF Students live in Districts C and D, than Districts A and B. Through data analysis, the System’s strategy for fall elections becomes clear: guarantee higher turnout in District A and B, sorority and fraternity row. Furthermore, the analysis explains why Districts C and D were the lifeblood of the independent movement, because independent parties did not have to compete in districts where voter coercion could be used to mobilize thousands of UF students in Greek life. By merging every district into a single at-large district, Gator/Vision hopes to dilute the votes of everyday students in favor of uniform Greek domination.

Necessary Turnout to Overcome Gerrymandering

The district system has allowed independent parties to win senate seats in UF Student Government elections. It historically has been impossible for independents to compete in Districts A and B, where the ability to coerce thousands of voters within Greek life has prevented the winning of a single seat. Therefore, the merging of all off campus districts into one district is a clear attempt at gerrymandering to suppress the minority voices of District C and D by overwhelming them with the turnout of District A and B.

UF Student Government Elections now has a new reality of a gerrymandered map. In this new reality, an independent party must match the turnout of the system party. It is hard, but not impossible for one key reason; not every voter in District A and District B is voting for the System party. Historically, independent-leaning UF students have been vastly outnumbered in these districts. Below is a graph of the percentage of votes for the Independent Party within Districts A and B, and in Districts C and D.

Standing over 50% indicates that an independent party received a majority of the votes in those districts. For example in 2022, Change Party dramatically overperformed in Districts C and D with 73% of the votes being cast for Change. In an at large map, for Change to win, they must receive a majority of the off campus votes overall.

In years with high performing independent parties (such as 2017 with Inspire and 2022 with Change) slightly below 25% of UF students in Districts A and B voted for the independent party. The only winning strategy for an independent party to overcome gerrymandering is to overcome this 1:3 ratio.

Fall 2022’s Off-Campus Election in Numbers:

  • 3,730 — Gator
  • 2,286 — Change
  • 6,015 — Total

Last fall, 2,286 off-campus students voted for Change while 3,730 voted for Gator. The difference between the two is 1,444. This means, relative to last year, Change will have to overperform by 1,444 off campus. Realistically, not every new voter will vote for Change Party, so turnout will have to improve by roughly 2,000.

These 2,000 votes can come from anywhere off campus. In theory, if students who historically live in District D vote in numbers above historical averages they would contribute to the additional 2,000 votes needed. This is possible because there are a total of 60,000 students at UF and all of them can vote this election, including UF online students, international students and graduate students. Furthermore, 78% of UF Students live off campus. Therefore, there are 45,000 UF students who live off campus, yet historical turnout for UF Student Government elections remains remarkably low.

Over the past thirteen years voter turnout for a fall UF Student Government election has broken 10,000 once. Last election, only 1 in 6 students voted. Therefore, it is more than possible to convince 2,000 additional off campus students to vote.

The gerrymandered map, while indeed a difficult obstacle to overcome, may be the death blow to the System’s one hundred years of domination. If Gator/Vision loses their own gerrymandered map, they instantly lose a majority of seats — and likely a supermajority. With a supermajority, the independent party can override the president’s veto to pass their legislative agenda.

The key reason the corruption with UF Student Government has been able to sustain itself for over a century is voter apathy. Students don’t vote because they don’t see the value in it, and then the elected people have no reason to do anything because no one is holding them accountable. Only through increased awareness of the importance and corruption in UF Student Government, can it become a place for all students.