Molly Flynn And the Unforgotten Satellite Campuses

As the Orange and Blue Party promised, a new record has been set for the request for absentee ballots. Judging by the reactions of the other parties, either they weren’t expecting it, or they just thought it was a cute story and nothing more.

Molly Flynn, the Pharmacy candidate for O&B, would very likely be one of the first Senators from a satellite campus in SG history. Satellite campuses are the forgotten stepchildren of SG – aside from a few college councils, there is virtually no avenue for students on these campuses to connect to the main one in Gainesville. Indeed, they can’t even vote in SG elections (if they even knew they were occuring) because no one makes an effort to even hand them an absentee ballot.

Not this year. Molly set out to do the unprecedented, and whether she can win or not next week, she has achieved the unexpected – by driving up interest in Jacksonville and Orlando for the upcoming elections.

In my time in SG and BOCC, I was always worried about voter apathy, but never really explored why turnout was low. But non-traditional students (night-students, family housing tenants, satellite campuses) are all largely ignored by the undergraduate Greeks running SG.

Molly deserves a lot of credit for changing that, and I certainly hope she ends up winning the election for it.