Back to the Beginning

To the Editors of The Crimson:

As a member of the Freshman Council and its Election Committee, I was disappointed by the coverage in the December 1 edition of The Crimson of the freshman CHUL runoff election. The story contained several misleading statements. First, the story implied that the Elections Committee had not made provisions for those ballots with only one vote. In fact, the Committee had planned to invalidate those ballots in advance. The difficulty arose when several of the candidates mistakenly advised voters they need not vote for two candidates. Many of these voters proceeded to cast one-vote ballots, thereby creating confusion in determination of a majority. The confusion was not therefore the fault, as the story implied, of poor planning by the Elections Committee, but of an honest mistake by those candidates who were unaware of the Committee's plans.

Secondly, the Committee decided, contrary to The Crimson account, that if single-vote ballots were to be counted, they could only be counted as one vote. These incidents were unfortunate and regrettable. The second runoff is scheduled for Monday, December 12. The Elections Committee has taken steps to assure that such misunderstanding does not reoccur. These include a set of rules which shall be made available to all candidates and to The Crimson. I am certain The Crimson, as well as all parties involved, join me in hoping for a smooth, uneventful rerun. Steven G. Noles '81   Elections Committee   Freshman Council