A recap of the University of Florida Student Government, Spring 2025 Election
Student government elections took place on Feb 25 and 26 in several voting locations on the University of Florida (UF) campus.
In the span of the two days, 9,611 student ballots were cast. This turnout has decreased over the past few years. In spring 2024, 10,304 ballots were cast, and 12,472 ballots were cast in spring 2023.
Students could vote for candidates in the Change Party, Vision Party, Watch Party, and Independent in this year’s election.
In the spring semester, students can vote for the Executive Branch and Senators based on their respective colleges. The Student Body President, Student Body Vice President, Student Body Treasurer, and 50 senators who would represent the respective academic colleges are chosen in this voting cycle.
The Spring 2025 Executive Debate was held on February 10, 2025, at the Reitz Union Grand Ballroom.
Students, both present and online, got to view their peers' debate for Student Body President, Student Body Vice President, and Student Body Treasurer. Vision Party’s executive ticket included Blake Cox, Jade Gonzalez, and Johanna Moncy in those respective positions. The Change Party’s executive ticket included Anamika Naidu, Joaquin Rafaele C. Marcelino, and Maximillian Banach in those respective positions. Watch Party’s executive ticket included Alfredo Ortiz and Ajay Pooran in their respective positions, with no treasurer candidate.
In the debate, all parties discussed their platform points as well as hot topics such as 24/7 Marston, the student government budget, the RTS bus system, the gerrymandered Fall map, the abolishment of DEIA policies, Ben Sasse, the controversy surrounding Accent Speakers & Student Government Productions with selecting guests and their funding, and attendance at the big four hearings, just to name a few.
Vision Party’s platform revolved around establishing a student worker appreciation week, providing discounted laundry services to students, planting native pine trees in Plaza of the Americas, making a student art fair, making an exit survey for graduating business students to share about their experiences, and additional points.
Change Party’s platform revolved around points such as expanded tutoring services, free printing in all libraries, free laundry, RTS funding transparency, campus lighting improvements, adding community gardens, and additional points.
Watch Party’s platform revolved around fair elections, which involved key policies such as five seats allotted to District D, online absentee voting, satellite campus voting locations, and a $250 public campaign budget.
Vision secured 47 Senate seats, Change secured 2 Senate seats, and Watch Party secured none. Now Vision occupies over 92 seats in the chamber.
Blake Cox, Jade Gonzalez, and Johanna Moncy won the executive ticket for the Vision Party. Vision secured 47 seats, including 11 graduate seats, along with the law, medicine, nursing, and pharmacy seats.
Change Party won the Arts seat along with 1 graduate seat.
The Student Government is now under a one-party system. Vision saturates the UF student government with even more power than it had previously and limited opposition to stand against it.
The election results were certified on March 4th in the Senate chambers.
Exiting senators and party leadership said their goodbye speeches reminiscing on their time in the chambers. Many talked about valuable life lessons learned, and helpful associates that they’ve met during their time in the Senate.
Newly elected senators and those elected to leadership positions took oaths with their right hands raised to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, the state of Florida, and the UF student body, while doing their job to the best of their ability on pain of impeachment.
