University Voters May Cast Crucial Ballots in Local Election Contests

When the doors swung shut on the Board of Elections office at 10 o'clock last night, over 150 University students, most of them from the Law School, had registered to vote, but whether their ballots would be sufficient to influence the outcome of Cambridge's municipal election only November 4 can tell.

Student from out-of-state are required to be self-supporting in order to vote in Massachusetts, and the G.I. Bill of Rights has for the first time brought this qualification within reach of the great mass of University students.

Chief interest in the University centers on the Liberal Union campaign to elect Rembert Stokes to the City Council and Kenneth deP. Hughes to the School Committee. Both are Negroes.

Stokes and Hughes also ran for these posts in 1945, when they failed of election by narrow margins. Because of the small size of the Cambridge vote in off-year elections, the University vote could aid both in making up their 1945 deficits.

There are eight seats on the Council and six on the School Committee. Stokes ran twelfth in a field of 35 in the 1945 Council race, while Hughes placed eighth in the School Board race even though he had more first place votes than several of the winners.

Both elections are run under the proportional representation system.