Introduction

During the mock election of the 2025-2026 school year, each campaign selected a treasurer to track their hard and soft money spendings. Hard money refers to store-bought, ready-made items without homemade components, such as candies, balloons, and plastic utensils. Soft money refers to items that either have homemade components or serve as toppings for homemade items. For example, whipped cream on top of hot chocolate, though purchased from a store, constitutes as soft money. Other examples of soft money include Doritos used in walking tacos, oatmilk used in matcha lattes, and packaged ramen that requires cooking.

Unlike the last mock election, the hard money limit increased from $125 to $150 after an agreement was made between both treasurers. Though the soft money remained unlimited, the treasurers were asked to track that spending too in order to get a more well-rounded sense of their campaign expenditures. One of the most prominent roles of the treasurers was to make sure that their campaigns didn’t go beyond the hard money limit, as that could result in financial burden, unfair advantages against the other campaign, and the electorate attending events for the food instead of for the policies. It’s worth noting that both campaigns took advantage of Mr. Gilligan’s inventory, where resources and services including utensils, construction paper, as well as black and white photo copying on letter papers were provided free of charge.

When the treasurers couldn’t get a hold of a purchase receipt, they computed the price using the standard market value. When calculating these figures, sales tax of 8% was also included for prepared foods, soft drinks, and non-food household items to the best of the treasurers’ abilities to determine whether certain items are generally taxable. These factors are especially true for the plastic utensils that were purchased. For more information regarding the price, please refer to Table 1: Treasury Introduction below.

Following this introduction are two detailed reports that provide organized records of campaign spending that are either categorized as soft or hard money. These reports aim to provide transparency in campaign spending and to demonstrate that both campaigns complied with the spending limits.