New System for Council Elections Opens Nomination to Student Body

Seven weeks of study culminated last night in a new system of Student Council elections including open nominations from the floor in House meetings and a proportional representation ballot. Only the final wording of the document remains to be decided upon, the Constitution Committee announced.

The new nomination process calls for an open assembly of House members two weeks prior to the elections, usually, but not necessarily, under the gavel of a council member. Names must be submitted from the floor and will be placed on petitions available in the dining halls for four days. Twenty signatures will place a candidate on the ballot, with no individual eligible to sign more than two petitions.

Before opening the meeting to nominations, the chairman, who may not be a councilman up for reelection, must provide a report of council activities since the last previous election. Financial statements and a summary of work by committees will be included, and questions or suggestions from the floor will be in order.

Ballot by P. R.

The election itself will be by proportional representation. Voters will mark their ballots to indicate the order of their preference of the candidates. When the tabulation has given a candidate enough first place votes for election or to clearly eliminate him, further ballots in his favor will be thrown to the voter's second choice and, when the occasion demands, third and fourth down the line.

Any vacancy that may arise between elections will be filled by the runner-up in the election that had filled the place in question, a procedure made easy by proportional representation.

With members of the Council Constitution Committee still engulfed in controversy over the actual elected-appointed ratio of Council makeup, the question will be left to a straw vote of the student body immediately after Thanks-giving.

The alternatives to be presented at House meetings will be 1) the council shall be completely elective, though non-council members may be committee chairmen, or 2) the Council may by a two thirds vote appoint undergraduates to membership, providing such appointments shall not exceed five or some other figure yet to be stipulated.