On the other side of the election, a different mood, one less happy, made its presence known.

The two losing tickets, Gravel-Meyer and the Youngquist-Gonwa ticket, faced the heartache of a political loss.

The campaign headquarters of the “Get Represented” ticket at presidential candidate R.J. Gravel’s apartment was the scene of much joking and jubilation.

Gravel and treasurer candidate Joshua Blakemore, along with supporters and friends, sat around his living room, making obscene comments about political parties and photos of each other that never will be released.

Then, shortly after 8:30 p.m., the group, with student trustee candidate Jeff Meyer, received the phone call.

Meyer reported to the group they all had lost, “except Laisha has a run-off by six votes.”

Vice-presidential candidate Laisha Fox said she will campaign harder for the run-off election, which will be held on April 2. Vice-presidential candidates Fox and Andrew Becerra have a run-off because they both failed to receive the required votes of 50 percent plus one vote.

“The run-off only gives me more motivation to win,” Becerra said.

Much earlier in the evening, Blakemore and Gravel had commented on what they would do should they not be elected. Gravel expressed concern that he may lose the election.

“We’re both big into Illinois politics … national politics,” Blakemore said.

Gravel closed the night with a comment about the results of the election.

“The coalition that has been in power for the last three years continues,” Gravel said.

The third party candidate also faced the loss, but not with complete disappointment.

“We put up a good try. We didn’t really expect a win, it was a third party ticket,” said Eric Youngquist, a former presidential candidate. “Shaun’s campaign had a lot more organizational support. It was a little disappointing though.”

Younquist’s running mate, Susan Gonwa, former vice-presidential candidate, echoed the same sentiments.

“I wasn’t really expecting to win, it was a long shot,” Gonwa said. “I wanted to make a difference and help people; I did what I could. It’s kind of disappointing though because if Eric didn’t win, I was hoping Gravel would.”

The election days were not without problems.

Both days of elections, the pollers had trouble with the OneCard machines. The first day the servers, which support the machines, had gone down.

“There was another problem with the same communication and an internal problem with one of the OneCard readers,” said SA Election Commissioner Andrew Nelms.

Fourteen voters Tuesday and 20 voters Wednesday had been turned away, but were instructed to come back at a later time, Nelms said.

Nelms also said there were some problems with chalkers. A “non-partisan prankster” had added obscene words and drawings to Crisler-Miller and Gravel-Meyer tickets.

“I didn’t see any for the Youngquist ticket, but they didn’t have nearly as much,” Nelms said of the chalking.