In case you missed the beginning of this epic saga, here’s a little re-cap: Ultimate College Bowl set up a competition between schools to see which campus could register the most voters by a given deadline. The winning student body was slated to be serenaded by Ben Gibbard and friends … for free. UCSB was pretty well in the lead until (twist!) the contest deadline was extended actually after UCSB was declared the winner! Berkeley made an incredible last-minute comeback, and everyone thought that was that.

Then, in a final blue balls-ing (at least for us cuties in B-Town) turnabout, the Ultimate College Bowl stated that they made mistakes tallying up the last-minute votes, and that when duplicates were taken into account, UCSB actually came out as top banana. Did you follow that?

In a nutshell, we lost, Santa Barbara won; they get two free-ish concerts, and we get zilch. Except maybe a bunch of hanging chads. Or a bunch of equally unexciting things–like registered voters.

(Note: Thanks, Rebecca sending us the link to the new Daily Nexus article.)

(Update: Post edited for accuracy.)

Image Source: barackobamadotcom under Creative Commons
UCSB Wins Death Cab for Cutie Concert [Daily Nexus]
Earlier: In Unexpected Upset, Cal Leapfrogs UCSB in Ultimate College Bowl

Last we checked, Berkeley was trailing UC Santa Barbara by a few hundred voters. In fact, we still are trailing UCSB by a few hundred voters, according to the Ultimate College Bowl website. But a new report from UCSB’s newspaper, the Daily Nexus, informs readers that it was all a terrible mistake, because UCSB didn’t win–Berkeley did.

It’s not that 10,499 voter registrations somehow managed to beat out 10,857 through some contractual loophole. It’s that the number is patently misleading. Via an extension of the voter registration period to one week after Nov. 4, our tally shot up by an additional 3,000 voters.

As it stands, Berkeley pulled in 12,392 voters, or 36.52 percent of its student body, while UCSB registered 11,353 voters, or 53.85 percent of its student population.

That means, fingers crossed, we can look forward to a free show from Death Cab–a sure score to shore up a campus dearth of concerts, an area where Superb has majestically underwhelmed this year (and let’s be honest–where hasn’t Superb underwhelmed this semester?) But calm your thrilling hearts–the UCSB report also notes that the free concert isn’t really free, requiring as it does tens of thousands of dollars in fees and financial accommodations.

UCSB still gets a free concert from Colin Meloy, lead singer of the Decemberists, for registering the highest percentage of their student body. Good on them.

Image Source: barackobamadotcom under Creative Commons
UCB Gives Concert to Berkeley [Daily Nexus]