Students Deny Legitimacy of HYRC Voting

several undergraduates have charged that new officers of the Young Republican Club encouraged them to vote in the club's election meeting last Wednesday night, although they were not legitimate club members.

The charges followed a report read it the election, before the voting, by John Luckstone 3L, past treasurer of the organization. The report said that the club had about 40 more stubs for membership cards than it had dues-paying members.

According to the HYRC constitution, no student may vote in a club election unless he has paid his dues. Everyone admitted to the meeting was allowed to vote, however, because no record was available of who had not paid the two dollar fee.

One of the students who voted in the election a sophomore from Eliot House, said that a new officer gave him a membership card on February 6, three days after the final date on which a student should join the club and still be eligible to vote. In addition, no dues were requested for the card.

Unpaid Dues

"We went into the election with one major question: why have 40 members not paid their dues?" John W. Stephens '55, retiring president of the club, asked yesterday. "And if they did pay," he continued, "why didn't the club's treasurer receive the dues?"

A sophomore last night quoted a members of the club's impartial elections committee as saying early last week, "We may be in a tight sport. We want to get as many out as we can." The sophomore said the committee member had given him a membership card at registration.

Further charges by Joseph F. Studholme '58, former office manager of the HYRC, claimed that on the day before the election three of the successful candidates for office forcibly attempted to remove a membership list, club property to which Studholme had access, from his person.

Threat of Violence

Studholme admitted that he had taken the list from the club office to check rumors that membership cards had been illegally distribute by one faction in the organization.

Studholme later resigned his position after one of the new officers "asked me over the telephone to turn in my list and office key." In addition, Studholme claimed, he was threatened with physical violence, although the new officer denied that he had ever made such a statement.

In addition opponents of the new club officers charged that a student who had left the College in January voted in the election. John R. Thomson '57, the new president of the club, insisted that while the student was admitted to the closed meeting he had not actually voted.