University of Virginia Library

Letters To The Editor

Council 'Apathy' Attacked

I would like to offer the congratulations
of one interested student
to the eight vigilantes of Student
Council who Tuesday night
struck another blow in their never
responding fight against apathy. As a
regular attendant at Council meetings,
I was fortunate enough to
have a ringside seat at the fight
for increased student participation
in student government. Many
others were not so fortunate. This
letter is being written for the information
of those students and
Council members who are not
aware of what happened Tuesday.

It was suggested by Councilman
Gordon Calvert that the
number of ballot boxes in College
elections be increased and the
voting hours in living areas, i.e.
Rugby Road, McCormick Road
and Alderman Road, be extended.
Reasons for this suggestion were
plentiful: 1) Many students leave
their residences before nine and
do not return before two; these
students may not have an adequate
chance to vote rushing to or from
classes. 2) There are no boxes
in any of the science buildings,
making it extremely difficult for
many science students to vote.
3) Since this year's Elections Committee
began cutting back on the
number of ballot boxes in College
elections, the percent of that school
voting has fallen from an average
of over 55% in the years 1960-67,
including 57% and 56% in the two
spring elections of 1967, to an average
of 41%, the lowest in at least
eight years. Also noted during the
discussion were the facts that extra
workers could be provided by the
Alderman Road Committee (which
unanimously offered this service
last election, only to be told "no,
thank you"), the First-Year Committee,
the fraternities and the political
societies.

A point made by both Council
President Rick Evans and Treasurer
Frank Homer deserves a great
deal of consideration—what need is
there to have poll watchers? We
are at least nominally on an Honor
system, and, if necessary, there are
the yellow sheets signed by the
voters against which the vote totals
can be checked. The ideal
embodied in all these reasons was
that as many students as possible
should be encouraged in every reasonable
way to vote, that those on
Student Council have a responsibility
to promote student self-government—not
Council government of
students, but student participation
in student government.

On the other hand, it was ably
and eloquently stated by the Chairman
of the Political Societies and
Elections Committee, Joe Fioravanti,
that increasing the number
of boxes or the hours of balloting
would inconvenience his Committee.
While Mr. Fioravanti never
did say why or how his committee
would be inconvenienced, he
didn't need to, for the Council
voted 8 to 6 against the move
to place apathy outside the tradition
of the University. The voice
of student government spoke out,
and the mighty 8 ruled: no extension
of hours, no additional
ballot boxes. After all, as any
one who has approached the Elections
Committee about the matter
should know, any student who
wants, more than anything else,
to vote, will do so no matter how
difficult or inconvenient it is for
him. Isn't it far better to inconvenience
the student than the Elections
Committee?

With the fervent hope that interested
student opinion, good
sense, and valid arguments will
continue to be ignored, I heartily
endorse Council's action.

Poster Problems

I should like to know why the
posters calling for help in voter
registration specify that Kennedy
volunteers are encouraged. The
policy of the NAACP (of which I
am a member) has always been
that the organization does not in
any way take a partisan stand
during an election campaign. Thus
in the 1966 Alabama gubernatorial
race, the NAACP refused to endorse
or work with Carol Robinson,
an independent liberal,
against Lurleen Wallace and her
equally racist Republican opponent,
James Martin. Given this
tradition—a sound one, I believe—
there is no justification for the
association of the local NAACP
and the Kennedy forces which
seems to be upcoming. The local
McCarthy organization should
register a strong complaint with
the national headquarters of the
NAACP—as I intend to do.