University of Virginia Library

Voided Spring Elections
Scheduled For Next Week

The Student Council will hold an
election on October 5 and 6 to fill two
vacant seats, and the fourth-year class will
revote the same day on a runoff election
declared invalid last spring due to election
irregularities.

The Council election will seat a
representative from the School of
Graduate Arts and Sciences and a
representative from the School of
Medicine. No candidates ran for these
positions last spring.

The Class of 1972 will be making its
third attempt to select its president and
Committee Representative from the College for
the current term. The class will also take a
referendum to determine what possible
commencement speakers it favors most, and it
will select a representative from the
architecture school.

During the first election, fourth-year
students voted to decide the class president and
representatives from five undergraduate
schools. In the races for president and College
representative, however, no candidate received
the 40 per cent of the vote necessary to win.

Hal Bogard and Jay McSpaddon, the
candidates for president who received the highest
number of votes, participated in the runoff
election. Alan Featherstone and John R, Wood
also competed in the runoff for the college
post.

When the votes were counted the Student
Council's Election Committee declared the new
election invalid. The committee reported finding
evidence of definite irregularities in the
election.

Committee members found a number of
ballots together which appeared identical in
votes, ink color, and shape of check mark.
Council member Steve Edwards said "there was
no attempt to conceal" the irregularity.

In order to combat such ballot box stuffing,
Council will request more volunteer
poll watchers and decrease the number of hours
that polls will be open, Mr. Edwards said.