Election Confusion

The Student Council has just finished conducting an election. In the process of nominating, voting, and counting ballots a ludicrous number of irregularities occurred. None was unavoidable. The Class Committee election could have come off without a hitch if it had been properly managed.

The election was poorly administered. One candidate actually helped supervise the counting; the fact that some ballots were improperly marked and thus void was not discovered for a full day after the results were announced; candidates were allowed to review the honesty of the count, but disinterested parties were not allowed in the room.

Further, there were too many nominees. This meant that voting was necessarily confused, and that except for the top men, the candidates were separated by margins so small as to be nearly meaningless. There are three solutions which, though perhaps not ideal, could straighten this out: 1. have a primary election and then a run-off; 2. require more signatures on nominating petitions, insuring both a smaller slate and nominees who are known to the voters; 3. at least institute preferential voting to help offset the size of the ballot.

All this might point to invalidation of the election. But it seems hardly worth while to throw the newly-elected committee--probably the correct one by now--out of office. This election got completely out of control, as the Council must have discovered after two days of counting and recounting. Realization of the mistakes plus uncomfortable publicity should be enough to insure a more even-handed operation next time.