House Heads Meet to Set Voting Rules

Student elections for the unprecedented student-Faculty committees approved by the Faculty last month, have been postponed because of student apathy.

The original-deadline for the several Houses to complete their elections was today. Each House was supposed to elect one representative to each of two committees. But as of last night, only Dudley and Leverett had conducted their elections. In Leverett, only one person ran for each position (although there were write-ins), and about 40 per cent of the House voted. Thirty Dudley members showed up for a House meeting at which their elections were held.

To further complicate the problem: Dudley has elected a representative to the permanent Committee on Rights and Responsibilities, which does not exist yet; Mather has no official House committee to run its election; and the Faculty made no rules for the elections, so that each House committee is free to conduct its election any way it wants.

Eight House committee chairmen and Nancy Beth Gordon '71, president of RUS, met late last night with John D. Hanify '71, president of the late Harvard Undergraduate Council, Kirby C. Wilcox '72 of the Committee of Fifteen, and Terry Consodine, special assistant to Dean May, to try to organize a uniform election procedure.

Each House is supposed to elect one representative to the Committee on Houses and Undergraduate Life, and one to either the Committee on Students and the Community, the Committee on Undergraduate Education, and the proposed permanent Committee on Rights and Responsibilities. A drawing earlier this month determined which Houses would send representatives to which commit-tees. The freshmen have representatives on all four committees. Radcliffe on the last three.

While each House committee, the Freshman Council, and RUS can still-and probably will-do whatever they want, last night's meeting settled on the following election scheme:

Students can either nominate themselves by accumulating 30 signatures on a petition, or be nominated by other House members who will be able to mark names on a House list one day in the dining hall. "There's a stereotype of people who run for this sort of thing." Hanify said. "This double nominating process might uncover some new people who will be glad to run."

The elections and candidates' positions will be publicized with leaflets and House meetings.

The elections will be held on or by March 11. Sixty per cent of House members must vote for the results to be considered valid.

Elections will be by the increasingly popular "proportional representation" system. Each student will be allowed to record his first through fifth choices for each of the two posts. This last proposal brought a lot of discussion. Lawrence S. DiCara '71 said, "Do you know what a pain in the touches it is to add up all those numbers?"

George E. Christodoulo '71 of Leverett House said his House committee would probably be disinclined to organize another election. Stanley G. Ellis. '71 of Dudley said they had conducted their election "by the only way we know how in Dudley House." All agreed Dudley was a special case and that there was no need to hold another election there.

Consodine said the Faculty would probably have no objection to letting Quincy and Dudley elect their representatives to the CRR before that committee is officially approved.

Also on the ballot in each House will be the controversial "Supercouncil" proposal. If supported by a majority of students, this proposal would allow the students on all the above committees to meet together and consider themselves the official Harvard student government.

Several people at the meeting, while agreeing that the new government will need a name, objected to the nickname "Supercouncil" that has been adopted by the Harvard media. "It sounds like it's going to solve all our problems," complained Peter J. Birnbanm '71 of Kirkland House, "It's inherently ridiculous."