On Friday, Jan. 13, senior Logan Sowers was sworn in as president of room 305 by government teacher Rebekah Amato after months of campaigning by student political parties that culminated in an election on Tuesday. 

Sowers’ party, Ratatouilletarianism, prevailed in a runoff election after the general election ended in a three way tie. It was the end of Amato’s annual political party project in which students design their own parties and compete to win the election.

To simulate a real election, Amato opened the voting to students in all of her classes who met the requirements to vote in the state of Virginia. They needed to be at least 18 years old, bring a valid ID and be registered to vote. These students, who had participated in the project since November, served as the 15 percent of voters in an election who are informed. Amato then sent out the ballot to other classes who had no knowledge of the parties to play the role of the 85 percent of voters who are uninformed. And once all the votes were in, the Ratatouilletarianism party came out on top.

According to Amato, Sowers earned the title of president and the right to choose a cabinet by winning. 

“We refer to Logan as President Sowers,” Amato said. “But where we tend to have the most fun is when we get to the legislative branch and we try to impeach Logan. And then President Sowers also gets to pick a cabinet when we get to the executive branch portion.”

The Ratatouilletarianism party consists of Sowers, Quyen Nguyen and Jenna Lopez. Their party’s mission is to incorporate rats into every part of American society.

“Our whole platform was about integrating rats into society, like in “Ratatouille” [when] they were cooking in the movie,” Sowers said. “We figured [we should] just put that into all aspects of America.”

Sowers is proud that the team managed to win despite not receiving any support from classmates during the caucus in the weeks before the election.

“It really is a comeback story,” Sowers said. “We’re the underdogs and we made it. We’re the under rats.”

One way that the group won support was their ad. The Ratatouilletarianism party earned the most ad time by raising the most fake money from teachers in the campaign finance part of the project. Another way that Sowers was able to gain support in between the caucus and the election was the debate, which took place in the forum on Monday, Jan. 9. In the debate, the candidates answered questions on stage from teachers serving as moderators in front of an audience of their classmates. 

Senior Andrew Orndorff participated in the debate as the candidate from the Supership America party. His strategy was to appeal to the moral reasoning and class consciousness of the audience.

“I did this by bringing up the value of Georgist economic theory and appealing to their indignation against the greatest evil of mankind, by which I mean land ownership, and appealing to their national spirit and desire to advance their country to its highest form,” Orndorff said. 

He enjoyed having the chance to face off against his fellow candidates in a simulation of a real presidential debate. 

“It was a glorious moment,” Orndorff said. 

Orndorff and Sowers were two of 13 candidates on stage for the debate, which was the final step before students began to cast their votes.

Now that the election is over, the government classes can move on to other units, presided over the entire time by President Sowers.