Non-Existent Candidate Snafus Smoker Committee Election

The short but eventful non-corporeal existence of Frederick B. Applegate '51 came to a sudden and last night, and the bursting of the bubble east doubts on the validity of last Monday's election for the Class of 1951 Smoker Committee.

Applegate, a figment of the imaginations of Lloyd M. Ritter '50 and Robert M. Young '49, garnered 90 votes from unsuspecting Freshmen, and the possibility that these votes might have influenced the outcome led several defeated candidates to demand a now election.

Though Applegate backers did not turn to the sex-conscious campaign methods need by other Yard politicos, pictures of "Applegate" like the one to the right, actually Ritter's Rutgers friend Joseph Leopold, were posted conspicuously in the Union.

Ritter and Young entered their fictitious friend in the race "to show how our so-called democratic government really works."

But David Brockway '51, who ran ninth in the battle for eight posts on the committee, did not see it that way. "It was lousy trick to pull. It wasn't funny. Since applegate's votes might have changed the result, there should be another election."

Candidates Steven O. Saxe and Richard A. Van Douren, who also ran close to the top eight, concurred with Brockway's demand for a re-vote. But Student Council President Edric A. Weld Jr. '46 definitely ruled out an election before vacation, while declining to make any comment on the possibility of a January ballot until he had checked with the committee in charge of Monday's voting.

Other irregularities. In Monday's election procedure also came to light as a result of the Applegate case, Because of a mix-up, Applegate's nominating petition, duly signed by 30 Yardlings, as well as that of Rodman F. Duane, were submitted to John H. Carnahan '50, Council member in charge of the election, after the ballots had already been printed.

Carnahan ordered a second printing in include Applegate and Duane, but a printer's error included a large number of the old ballots in the new batch. Seventy-three of these were distributed before the error was caught