Council Race Heats Up

Although temperatures dropped yesterday, campaigning heated up for the Undergraduate Council presidential and vice-presidential elections.

The second day of campaigning witnessed more apparent acts of sabotage against presidential candidate Rohit Chopra ’04.

Last night, a number of campaign posters supporting other candidates bore bold, red pencil scrawls reading “Rohit.”

But other posters—including an advertisement, a publicity poster for the Catholic Students Association and one of Chopra’s own posters—also received the scrawls.

Last week, before the official start of campaigning, signs that appeared to support the Chopra campaign were posted.

“I can assure you that no one officially involved with the Chopra-Stannard-Friel campaign has anything to do with these acts of vandalism and we’re very disappointed that anyone would engage in such acts,” said Ryan C. Downer ’04, a coordinator for the campaign of Chopra and running-mate Jessica R. Stannard-Friel ’04.

David I. Monteiro ’04, chair of the council’s Election Commission, warned candidates in an e-mail last night, “Do not commit these violations. In addition to being underhanded and completely inappropriate, we regard them as an extremely serious...violation.”

“The Election Commission will not hesitate to summarily disqualify any candidate—including after the close of voting—proven to our satisfaction to have used or endorsed the use of these tactics,” Monteiro wrote.

Covering The Yard

Running-mates Jason L. Lurie ’05 and Alexander S. Misono ’04 did their first round of postering yesterday, hanging small posters of different colors in dorms and in the Yard.

“No Gimmicks, No Nonsense, Just Results,” the posters read. “Bring Dignity Back to the Council.”

The Lurie-Misono posters are much smaller than those of the other tickets that have postered.

The posters of Fred O. Smith ’04 and Justin R. Chapa ’05 and Chopra and Stannard-Friel are very similar. Both are large—11 by 17 inches, instead of Lurie and Misono’s 8.5 by 11 inches—both use a yellow and black color scheme and both bear the candidates’ names in large bold letters.

But Chopra and Stannard-Friel’s posters also refer to some of their past accomplishments with the council.

The David M. Darst ’04 and Shira S. Simon ’04 posters employ a less prominent blue-and-black color scheme.

The names of both Darst and Simon initially appeared together on a single poster, meaning that each sign counted twice against the campaign’s total $200 budget.

As of last night, though, many of the joint posters had been replaced with posters for either Darst or Simon.

—Staff writer Alexander J. Blenkinsopp can be reached at blenkins@fas.harvard.edu.