University of Virginia Library

Judiciary
Committee

In reply to the letter of Mr.
Allen Barringer, first let me say that
the Judiciary Committee, being
new to the task of administering a
University-wide referendum, has
had to face many unanticipated
problems during the course of the
past week.

First, we were confronted with
the fact that there were simply not
enough wooden Student Government
ballot boxes with which to
effectively hold a referendum for
the entire University. We remedied
this problem as best we could by
using cardboard boxes, marked as
"Ballot Boxes" in addition to the
regular wooden ones, and placing
them in locations which we felt
were easily accessible to most of
the student body. We found that
time after time, signs publicizing
the referendum and signs designating
the ballot boxes were torn
down.

In addition, on several occasions,
we did find substantial
numbers of unmarked ballots in
obvious "packs" in the ballot
boxes. When we encountered this problem we discarded those
"packs" and all other unmarked
ballots in those boxes which were
not obviously intended to be
abstentions.

I honestly feel that the few
irregularities that did occur were
detected by the Committee.

Elections at the University have
been conducted without poll
watchers for many years. In this
referendum the Judiciary Committee
simply followed procedures
which are accepted for elections at
Virginia. However, Mr. Barringer's
intimation that this means of
conducting elections is not the best
possible one has some merit. The
obvious fact is that in a small
election, under the present system,
it would only take one person with
some cunning who conducts himself
outside the spirit of the Honor
System to swing the election one
way or the other.

As a result of what I learned
during this referendum I had
already decided that I would
suggest to the Student Council and
to the Honor Committee that they
make a joint study of the election
process at Virginia.