Legally Black [COMPLETE]

7: count the vote

The 2018 election for Student Body President at Booker Heights High worked out like this.

The turnout for early voting was twice what it had been the year before. There were two forerunning competitors, Yves Gates one and Loren Wiley the other; both were seniors. Several overachieving dark horses from other years cantered in a distant third to seventh place. This was Yves or Loren's race to lose.

Two weeks out from the election, the early exit polls were dire for Team Gates.

 Loren Wiley was leading in the informal straw polls being conducted in the freshman homerooms by 23%. The freshmen feared her. The sophomores were similar, though their fear had shifted to a removed admiration over the summer. Of those who had voted early, they voted for Loren to the tune of 68% to 31% for Yves. The junior early voters were a different game; their removed admiration had gone full circle to terror and, paradoxically, love. They voted overwhelmingly for Loren, the senior class queen bee, 82% to 7%.

But the seniors? Those upperclassmen whose hearts and minds Loren had grasped in her hands for four years had grown hip to the game—and they were done playing by her rules.

The senior early voters had voted for Yves 52% to 39%. Not a promising standoff, probably not even a winning one, but it meant something. Queen bees could be deposed and 'prospects' weren't everything.

Yes, Yves didn't stand much of a chance and she knew it.

She wasn't even scared.