Council Voting Results Delayed

Even though this year’s Undergraduate Council presidential and vice-presidential elections saw the highest turnout ever, the campus will have to wait until later tonight to learn of the results.

David I. Monteiro ’04, chair of the council’s Election Commission, wrote in an e-mail last night that 3,266 students had cast ballots.

But the outcome of these votes will take longer than expected to be released, according to a commission announcement yesterday.

In a decision that has drawn mixed reactions from candidates and students, the commission said it would postpone announcement of the election results until 9:30 tonight—more than 21 hours after voting ended—in order “to ensure that all voters will have been able to vote prior to our tabulation.”

Monteiro wrote in an e-mail that the commission has delegated responsibility to Harvard Arts and Sciences Computer Services and the registrar’s office for making voting secure.

According to Monteiro, those offices will review today any students’ complaints of voting problems during the final hours of balloting.

But Monteiro also said that as of yesterday afternoon, fewer than 10 students complained about not being able to vote.

“This...gives some cause for concern on our part that a significant number of individuals might experience difficulties at the conclusion of the election,” Monteiro wrote.

The commission’s message to the council’s e-mail list curiously stated that “this race is an exceedingly close one, and the few votes that we may still be processing [today] may in fact change the result of this race.”

Some candidates cited this comment to encourage their supporters to vote.

In messages to the e-mail lists of the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgendered and Supporters Alliance (BGLTSA) and Black Men’s Forum, presidential candidate Fred O. Smith ’04 quoted the sentence about the closeness of the election.

“We’re about to pull this thing off,” Smith wrote to the BGLTSA. “If all of you vote...we win this thing.”

Rohit Chopra ’04, another presidential candidate, also cited the commission’s statement in an e-mail to supporters.

But Montiero said that nobody—including he and other members of the commission—actually knew which candidates were leading as of last night, or how close the race was.

Two months ago, the commission did not intervene or postpone announcing the results of the election for council representatives. The announcement came soon after voting ended, even though at least six dozen students never received e-mails with personalized links to the council website allowing them to vote.

In those elections, Houses and first-year voting districts chose representatives, meaning that each vote constituted a greater proportion of the electorate than in this campus-wide election.

Most candidates did not learn until yesterday of the possibility that the results would be delayed, though the council’s election rules do state that announcement of the results can be postponed.

Student reaction to the postponement has varied.

“If it affected 100 people, it would definitely be worth it,” said Jane E. Humphries ’03. “If it affected two or three, probably not.”

Mark F. Giancreco ’06 said he isn’t bothered by the delay.

“I don’t think it does any harm,” he said. “I don’t understand why anyone would be upset about that.”

But Sheila R. Adams ’05, who is a council representative and worked on Chopra’s campaign, said she would prefer the results to be announced as early as possible.

“I definitely wish that at 1 in the morning, after all our hard work on the campaign, we could know the result and whether it was a positive one,” Adams said.

“I do think that on the UC’s part, we need to get our act together, so that we don’t have a system that needs to be ok’d by someone else,” she added.

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