Third Ticket Enters UC Race

As the race for Undergraduate Council (UC) president and vice president heats up, a final third ticket has emerged while complaints about unfair campaigning have already surfaced.

The third ticket includes Magnus Grimeland ’07 and Thomas D. Hadfield ’08, vying for UC president and vice president, respectively.

Grimeland and Hadfield join two other sets of candidates running for the council’s top two spots.

John S. Haddock ’07—the vice-chair of the council’s Student Affairs Committee (SAC)—is running for president along with vice presidential candidate Annie R. Riley ’07, a former member of the council.

The third ticket is topped by John F. Voith ’07, chair of the council’s Campus Life Committee (CLC). His running mate is Tara Gadgil ’07, chair of SAC.

Grimeland, a member of the council’s Finance Committee who serves as one of Mather House’s representatives, is a relative newcomer to the UC. Hadfield, who has never served on the council, launched an unsuccessful bid to represent Eliot House this fall.

Their candidacy has come as a surprise to many council watchers. At last Sunday’s UC meeting, Grimeland was expelled from the council for three absences this year, although he said he plans to petition the UC’s executive board for readmission.

Grimeland said that he was away for four weeks because he was serving in the Norwegian army, but he added that if he were elected president, that commitment would end.

Unlike the other presidential candidates, Grimeland does not have any leadership experience on any of the council’s committees.

According to Michael B. Love ’08, chair of the Election Commission, all three sets of candidates have collected the required signatures.

While campaigning does not officially start until Monday, the Haddock-Riley campaign has already accused the Voith-Gadgil ticket of dirty politics.

On Sunday evening, while Voith and the CLC were fielding criticism about confusion on UC shuttles from Saturday’s Harvard-Yale game, two members of Haddock’s campaign—Ryan A. Petersen ’08 and Eric I. Kouskalis ’07, who is Haddock’s roommate—informed The Crimson that the website haddockriley.com was registered to Voith.

According to the Internet domain registering website Whois.com, two websites were registered under Voith’s name on Nov. 19. Voith is registered as the administrator for VoithGadgil.com and HaddockRiley.com.

On Sunday evening, Voith said that while he did not register the website, someone on his staff did.

"Someone on my campaign staff did register both of those websites," said Voith. "I was not aware of this."

Voith added that he did not want to play "dirty politics," and said that he had left Haddock several voice messages to clear up the issue.

"I want to correct this," said Voith. "I want to give them this website, pay for it for them out of my budget."

Haddock said he was "tremendously surprised and disappointed" by the news of the website.

"This is not the kind of campaign that we want to run and this is not kind of the campaign that we want Voith to run," Haddock said Tuesday night.

Haddock also added that he expected the Voith-Gadgil campaign would "make amends," although he did not specify what he would want.

UC presidential and vice presidential elections will be held from Dec. 5 to Dec. 8.

—Staff writer Alexander D. Blankfein can be reached at ablankf@fas.harvard.edu.