University of Virginia Library

Require A Majority

There is an important lesson to be learned
from this year's race for the presidency of
the College. For the second time in three
years more than the two customary caucus
candidates ran for the position. This is
certainly a healthy situation, for no office
is stronger than the desire people have to
attain it. As long as there is no difficulty
in finding qualified candidates for the position
of chairman of the Honor Committee,
we can all trust that the Honor System is
healthy and strong.

There is, however, one danger as potentially
more and more people decide to run for
the office. Under the current framework
governing the election there is nothing to
prevent as many people as are even casually
interested from running. Thus it is not inconceivable
that the election could be reduced
to a situation comparable to that of
the annual election for the officers of the
graduating class. Last year, for example,
the president of the class was elected over
nine other candidates with only 61 of 352
votes, or 17 per cent of those who voted.

We do not believe that the election of the
president of the College could ever decline
to this point, but it is not unlikely that there
could be as many as four or five candidates
in a given year. This would mean that the
chairman of the Honor Committee could be
elected by as few as 20 or 25 per cent of
those who vote. This would be a dangerous
and unhealthy situation, and it would be
open to all sorts of abuse. The president
of the college is too important and powerful
to be elected by so small a percentage of
those over whom he has so much authority.
He needs a sizeable mandate if he is to be
able to carry out his duties as chairman of
the Honor Committee as effectively as possible.

We feel, short, that he should be
elected by nothing less than a majority of
those voting. No one can be certain that
he is the most popular candidate for the
job if he does not have a majority. His
position is such that it is essential that he
be the most popular candidate.

We realize that an election in which a
candidate had to have a majority to win
would potentially involve several ballotings.
There would have to be some sort of primaries
to weed out the candidates, or there
would have to be runoffs. This would certainly
be a burden on those who had to
count the votes, but no burden is too great
when the strength of the Honor System is
at stake. The strength of the Honor System
is largely dependent upon the strength of
its leader, and so it is essential that that
leader be acceptable to a majority of those
who live under the system if he is to be as
strong as he needs to be.

This principle also holds for the other
members of the Honor Committee, although
we feel that there is less danger of a large
number of candidates in the smaller schools.
The strongest possible committee would be
one of which every member had been elected
by a majority of those who are eligible to
vote for him. If we had such a committee,
there could be no legitimate complaints
or doubts lodged about its decisions in
honor trials as well as in any more routine
matters or problems which might develop.

We hope the committee of the Student
Council which regulates these elections will
give this matter serious consideration. If
it decides that it would be advantageous to
require that the presidents of the College
and the other schools be elected by a majority
of those voting, it may want to require
that the vice-presidents, who sometimes sit
on the committee, also be elected by a
majority. These are questions which should
be studied and resolved before next year's
elections.

Let us hasten to add that we do not
feel that the Honor Committee has not
performed admirably in the past or that its
members are not eminently qualified. We feel
only that such a requirement would be
insurance that future committee would be as
strong as past and current ones and that
the Honor System would thus always be as
strong as it has been and now is.