UC Holds Fourth Special Election of the Year

Residents of six undergraduate Houses can vote in special elections for new Undergraduate Council (UC) representatives starting at noon today.

Adams House, Eliot House, Leverett House, Mather House, and Winthrop House have vacancies due to resignations of their UC representatives in the past few weeks. The election of John S. Haddock ’07 as UC President has also left a position open in Currier House.

Raymond L. Palmer Jr. ’07 and Christopher M. Pak ’07 are running unopposed in Winthrop and Mather respectively. Currier’s vacancy will be filled by either Eric I. Kouskalis ’07 or Joseph K. Cooper ’07. Leverett and Eliot will have three candidates for each spot: Benjamin S. Decker ’08, Matthew S. Fasman ’08, and Edward Y. Lee ’08 for Leverett; and Thomas D. Hadfield ’08, Harrison R. Greenbaum ’08, and Brian C. Aldrich ’07 for Eliot. Adams will face a six-person race with Kyle A. Krahel ’08, Thomas M. Hamnett ‘07, James P. Sietstra ‘08, Erin L. Frey ‘08, Jacob P. Mays ‘07, and Jillian E. Sylvester ‘08.

Although Mather and Winthrop have only one official candidate running, UC Election Commission (EC) Chair Michael B. Love ’08 said the elections would still be competitive.

“I have seen a number of posters out,” Love said. “It looks like it will be a good race in all the houses.”

Love said that this will be the fourth special election this year.

Last fall, the UC held elections for Dudley, Quincy, and Pforzheimer. It is not unusual for representatives to resign from the UC after one semester due to personal decisions about their time commitments, Love said.

“We always have several [representatives] that end up resigning,” he said.

In special elections held last February, an “almost identical” number

of candidates vied for eight spots, Love wrote in an e-mail. There were fewer resignations this year than last, he added.

Students will be able to cast their votes on the UC website, www.uc.fas.harvard.edu, from noon today until noon on Thursday.

The EC had originally wanted to hold the elections last Thursday through yesterday to allow newly-elected representatives to attend last night’s council meeting.

But the elections were moved from Thursday to today because of recent resignations from the UC, a desire for more time to publicize the elections, and concerns about technological difficulties.

“We had some people resign in the interim that I wasn’t informed of at first,” Love said. “We wanted to ensure that all the elections were happening at the same time.”

Love said another reason the commission moved the elections to Monday was to add an “additional element of safety” by having the staff at Harvard Computing Services in case of technical emergency.

President of the Harvard College Republicans Stephen E. Dewey ’07 sent a message over the GOP-Open e-mail encouraging members to run for office.

“If you run, we’ll help you campaign,” he wrote.

Love said that it is not unusual for political groups to endorse students running for the UC.

“You see that big time at the Presidential level,” Love said. “They can also do it at the regular UC Council level. It’s at their prerogative to do it.”

—Staff writer Rachel L. Pollack can be reached at rpollack@fas.harvard.edu.