High School Election Revenge – Part 1
HIGH SCHOOL ELECTION REVENGE – PART 1 – March 6, 2024 – American Falls, Idaho, USA
No formal polling existed, but anecdotal evidence showed Porter Roberts cruising to victory as American Falls High School’s student body president. Anyone who met Porter agreed he was friendly and loveable, although he did not stand out in a crowd. He was not the smartest or fastest or most musically talented student in the school of 400, but he claimed friends within all the cliques. He understood the farm kids, the churchy kids, the wannabe geniuses, the anime and goth crowd, the band and choir geeks, and the after-school athletes.
As election season approached, Porter’s only competition seemed to be a couple of sophomores. As a junior, Porter had more experience and a loyal campaign staff of six friends willing to speak up for him and distribute campaign propaganda. Porter promised his inner circle direct access to the strings of power. They already held regular meetings to play online games like Minecraft, so it was easy to divert some of their conversation toward the election.
The more he talked with his impromptu campaign staff, the more Porter hungered for the presidency. It quickly became his life’s ambition. While his friends mostly promoted Porter through word of mouth, he got busy making posters and stickers. His mom bought gum and candy to give away and attached ribbons with a slogan she invented: “I’m a Porter supporter.”
When the official campaign period began, Porter and his staff flooded school hallways with handouts and flyers. They included QR codes pointing to the social media sites Porter created specifically for his candidacy. He posted funny memes and video clips of him walking through school trying to get his fellow students to dance.
The constant campaigning was simultaneously exhausting and energizing. All of Porter’s high school level dreams focused on the election and he poured his soul into winning. And he seemed like a shoe-in until Sarah Dixon waited until the last possible day to enter the race.
Unlike Porter, Sarah did stand out in a crowd. She won local beauty pageants, dominated the town’s dance studio, and was the leading scorer on the high school’s soccer team. She was the closest thing American Falls had to an Influencer. And while her social media accounts were small by Taylor Swift standards, they were off the charts by small town Idaho standards. All 400 students in the high school followed her in one way or another.
After hearing that Sarah entered the race for student council president, Porter’s next campaign staff meeting was bleak. As his friends played on the same Minecraft server, no one but Porter sounded willing to talk about the election.
“She already has everything going for her, why does she want this too?” he asked with a groan. “And you know she’s doing it on a total whim. That’s why she waited until the last minute.”
Porter’s friends agreed but offered no advice or consolation.
“And it’s not like she’s interested in helping out the school,” Porter continued. “I’d fight for a longer lunch period and teacher report cards. She won’t do anything. It’s not fair.”
Finally, Mitch Kimball responded with, “Yeah, but what can we do about it?”
“There has to be a way to fight back,” Porter replied. “Maybe we could turn people against her. What weaknesses does she have? What’s she done wrong?”
“I know she’s bad at math,” Mitch said, trying to sound helpful. “She’s practically flunking her basic math class.”
“I don’t think that’s going to do it,” Porter replied. “No one cares about math.”
Three of Porter’s friends interrupted to defend math, but they had no other suggestions for a Sarah weakness.
“Maybe you could talk to her and convince her to drop out,” Mitch eventually said. “Tell her that stuff about fighting for lunch time and how much work it will be.”
No one had a better idea, but they all had excuses for not joining Porter when he confronted Sarah. He went alone and nervously walked up to her circle of friends during lunch. Sarah looked effortlessly beautiful and was taking a selfie with the girl sitting next to her.
“Hi Sarah. Can I talk to you about something?” Porter asked in his typically friendly voice.
“I guess,” Sarah replied coolly.
“Could we maybe talk in private?”
“What for? What do you wanna talk about?”
Porter realized isolating her for a one-on-one conversation would be nearly impossible. He had to push forward in front of a crowd. “It’s about the election and being student council president. I want to make sure you know how much work it is. I know you’re super busy and the president is supposed to go to a bunch of meetings.”
“Oh really?” Sarah asked sarcastically. “I think I can handle it.”
“People kind of expect you to come up with lots of ideas and make changes.”
One of the girls sitting next to Sarah said defensively, “Sarah already has lots of good ideas. So why are you saying all this?”
Porter fidgeted and replied, “I just want her to know what she’s getting into.”
“I think you’re hoping she’ll drop out.”
“Is that what you want? For me to quit?” Sarah asked with a smirk. “I’ve never quit anything in my life.”
Her claim about not quitting could easily have been disputed by her former piano teacher or the boss she had for two weeks over the summer at a car wash. But Sarah acted fierce and determined and Porter had no choice but to slink away. During their next Minecraft meeting, he told his friends about the humiliation.
“But maybe I still have a chance,” Porter added hopefully. “She hasn’t done anything for her campaign. No posters or handouts. I think the kids at our school will see the difference between laziness and hard work and choose me.”
The next day, as if to prove she was not totally indifferent to campaigning, Sarah reposted her favorite pageant photo on her social media accounts. The photo included the instructions, “Vote Sarah for Student Council President!”
Rather than sounding discouraged, Porter was giddy during the next campaign meeting.
“Now she has to drop out!” he announced. “She broke the rules. If you want to use social media, you have to create accounts specifically for the election. You can’t use already existing accounts with lots of followers. That’s a rule.”
Ms. Blomquist was the teacher in charge of elections and the student council. Porter marched into her office and explained the obvious rule violation. He concluded with, “Sarah has to be disqualified.”
Ms. Blomquist was not as quick with a decision. She thoughtfully read the rules and then said, “I’ll talk to Sarah. She probably didn’t understand. But I don’t want to be too harsh with her.”
Porter could not say for sure whether Ms. Blomquist met with Sarah or issued any kind of warning, but her voting instruction posts continued. The obvious favoritism brought Porter’s campaign staff back to life. During the final days of the election, they told anyone who would listen that Sarah was cheating and Porter was not only fighting her but the corrupt school system.
The election was held on a Thursday. Ballots were passed around in first period classes and then immediately collected for counting. With the results to be announced first thing Friday morning, Porter’s campaign staff met Thursday night in an upbeat mood. They assured each other that justice and fairness would prevail. All their contacts claimed they voted for Porter.
The optimism was short lived. When Ms. Blomquist read the election results over the school’s public address system, she started with student council president. “With 70% of the votes, Sarah Dixon.” Porter had a little over 20% with the other two candidates splitting the rest.
That night’s Minecraft session was filled with blistering fury. Porter did not need to prompt his friends as they denounced their entire school before focusing most of their disgust on Sarah. Porter latched onto their rage and channeled it into one of the most eloquent speeches ever heard during an online Minecraft game. His closing lines were a call to action.
“We can’t let this go. We have to stand up to her. If we don’t, people like her will walk over us the rest of our lives. We have to make her feel disappointment for once, like the rest of us feel every day.”
“If you could have said all that in front of the high school, you would have won for sure,” Mitch said enthusiastically.
“So how are we going to fight back and make her suffer?” Porter continued. “I want her to cry for a week.”
“My sister cried for a week when her boyfriend broke up with her,” Mitch replied.
“Hey, that’s it! One of you has to make Sarah fall in love with you and then break up with her,” Porter said, as if it was the simplest thing in the world. “It can’t be me. She’d suspect something. But we’ll all help whoever else volunteers.”
No one on the former campaign staff questioned the plan’s chance for success as they waited for someone to step up to the role of heartbreaker. Their confidence that Sarah would fall for whoever pursued her was a naïve tribute to persistence, something they had learned by countless video game restarts.
“We’ve gotta keep this top secret,” Porter continued. “We can’t tell anybody else. And whoever she falls in love with will need to spend a lot of time making it happen.”
A few people muttered excuses about being too busy. Finally, Gordon Jensen said, “Alright, if no one else will, I’ll do it.”
Gordon was the shortest member of the group and arguably the smartest. Although his mother might disagree, he was not considered attractive by any standard measure. He knew something about everything and was the last to log off during any of their gaming sessions.
“Everyone has to promise to help,” Gordon added. “I can’t be dealing with all this love and crying stuff by myself.”
The rest of the team agreed with even more energy than they showed at the heights of Porter’s presidential campaign. Gordon clasped his hands together as if he was a super villain. “Excellent. This shouldn’t take long at all.”
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