Yesterday’s election results may not have been surprising, but one thing is clear—they were riddled with cookie voter fraud.

As a complement to its political counterpart, the on-campus cookie election was hosted by Washington University Dining Services to reflect the University’s political leanings while also uncovering the complexity behind electoral politics.

The idea for the cookie campaign originated during the 2008 vice presidential debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, which was hosted by Wash. U. The tradition has withstood, and for the past few weeks, Café Bergson, Cherry Tree Café and Whispers sold blue donkey-shaped cookies alongside red elephants, tracking daily the number of each political animal sold on a banner along the wall inside Café Bergson.

Yesterday, the results were tallied, and in a landslide victory, the Democrats beat the Republicans by a margin of 679 donkeys sold to 432 elephants.

The donkeys may have achieved a clear victory, but it remains dubious whether voting procedures were fair and consistent throughout the campaign.

“I bought a total of three cookies, and two of them were Democrat blue. But then one day I wanted to optimize my sales purchase, and the elephant looked bigger, so I bought a red one,” junior Leslie Liberman said of her ballot-casting. “But I figured that my vote still counted in the long run because I bought two donkeys.”

Although a number of students agreed that the elephant appeared to be the bigger bang for their buck, Dining Services’ Director of Marketing Jill Duncan refutes the claim of bias.

“I weighed the cookies with our pastry chef, and there really isn’t much of a difference, definitely not enough of a difference to cause much commotion,” Duncan said.

Liberman is not the only one who may have distorted the election results by casting multiple cookie ballots. Senior Julia Kellman theorized that Republicans most likely consumed more cookies per person than Democrats.

“I think there is a skewed relationship,” Kellman said of the cookie results. “Perhaps Republicans are emotional eaters because they realize they have a worse candidate, and therefore they buy more cookies to fill the emptiness of their soul.”

Senior Brittany Cronin agreed that the medium of voting could potentially slant the outcome.

“Well, I mean, personally I think more Republicans will buy cookies because Democrats are really listening to Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity campaigns,” Cronin explained.

Despite its flaws, Duncan defended the cookie election system.

“I can’t necessarily say it’s an accurate representation of the students’ political views,” Duncan said, “but, I mean, I would say it’s definitely an indicator. I would think that if you were going to buy a cookie and you had a choice of donkey or elephant that you would probably choose whichever party you were a part of.”

Although meant to serve as an outlet for political expression, this saccharine campaign ostracized those who do not identify as Democrats or Republicans.

“I just want a Gary Johnson cookie, but all we are doing is throwing out cookies; we are really just reinforcing the two-party system,” senior Harris Engelmann said.

Looking toward next election year, perhaps a more bipartisan approach should be encouraged in the cookie campaign.

“I think they should’ve sold purple cookies that said ‘Vote,’” Cronin said.

Despite the inaccuracies and partisanship embedded in the electoral system, the cookie campaign was still appreciated by some.

“I think it’s kind of exciting during election time,” junior Rebecca Raftery said. “Most of all, they taste good.”

With additional reporting by Fangzhou Xiao and Michael Mayer.