Computer Glitches Delay U.C. Election

Problems with the on-line voting program forced Undergraduate Council elections to be postponed from yesterday morning to today.

The elections were originally scheduled to run from 12:01 a.m. Wednesday to 11:59 p.m. Friday but will instead run from 12:01 a.m. today until 11:59 p.m. Saturday. The first meeting of the new Council will take place as scheduled on Sunday at 7 p.m. in Sever 113.

Noah Z. Seton `00, co-chair of the election commission, said the problems came about because none of the members of the Undergraduate Council were very familiar with "UCVote," the computer program used to compile votes.

In previous years, the authors of the program helped the Council with any computer glitches they came across, but since the last of the computer programmers graduated last year, there was no one who could solve the problem this year.

Council candidates said they were not upset by the delay.

"I think that people will make their decisions fairly, and I doubt whether a day or so matters," said Shaunna D. Jones '99. "In Leverett House, there are only six people running, so even if no one votes, we're all on the UC anyway.

Some thought the delay might help the election.

"Being able to vote on Saturday may make it possible for even more people to vote because they're relaxing rather than in classes" said Jared B. Shirck `01, a candidate for Cabot House.

But others were concerned about the confusion the delay might cause.

"On the positive side, the delay allows more time to campaign, but it is confusing for people trying to vote," said Sonam Makker `02, a candidate for the South district of the Yard. "I hope that no one who tried to vote on Wednesday was so frustrated that they won't vote later. Overall, however, I'm not too worried about it."

Seton said the Council members had problems with the program on Sunday night as they attempted to update the program to reflect new changes in the first-year voting districts. They called Carl P. Sjogreen `00, president of the Harvard Computer Society (HCS), to ask for assistance.

Unfortunately, HCS could not solve the problems on such short notice, Sjogreen said.

"We were under the impression that there were members of the UC who knew how to run the elections, because they needed to know how to because we weren't necessarily always going to be available to help, and we're under no obligation to help them in the first place," he said.

Thus, it was not until Tuesday night that a member of HCS, Lee D. Feigenbaum '01, attempted to fix the program.

Feigenbaum solved the computer's redistricting problem, but further complications cropped up just as he was leaving to attend Yom Kippur services. He left the Council members with directions onhow to fix the new problems, but they were unableto fix them early enough for the elections tobegin on time.

Seton said the decision to delay the electionsfor a day was made at 11:50 p.m. on Tuesday andthat all computer problems were resolved by 2:30a.m.

He said the elections were moved back a day inorder to adhere to the Council's constitution,which requires three full days of voting, and tocreate as little confusion as possible.

"We're going to spend this year getting morefamiliar with the program so that this doesn'thappen again," Seton said.

To vote in the elections, type "ucvote" at thefas% prompt

Seton said the decision to delay the electionsfor a day was made at 11:50 p.m. on Tuesday andthat all computer problems were resolved by 2:30a.m.

He said the elections were moved back a day inorder to adhere to the Council's constitution,which requires three full days of voting, and tocreate as little confusion as possible.

"We're going to spend this year getting morefamiliar with the program so that this doesn'thappen again," Seton said.

To vote in the elections, type "ucvote" at thefas% prompt