Ballot Maze

In ten days an electorate of more than sixty million will choose from among two candidates for the nation's most important office. Five weeks later an electorate of about four thousand will choose from among thirty-odd candidates for the Harvard Student Council.

Considering the gravity of the latter choice and the seriousness with which all take the opportunity to vote, it would seem all the more important that the voters be presented with a comprehensible ballot. Instead they are given a preference system justifiable only because it is hinted at in the Council's constitution.

The system usually involves listing ten candidates in the voter's order of preference. The ballots are heaped in order of first-place preferences, the lowest candidate being eliminated. This process goes on until only enough candidates are left to fill the offices open.

This plan works well when it is intended to prevent block-voting, by national-origin or religious groups, or even by large fraternity groups. No such groups exist here, and the plan effectively solves a non-existent problem. The main effect it can have is to elect the big-name football player to the class committee if he is put down as a ninth choice and works his way up.

Clearly the most efficient and fairest system would permit the upperclass student to vote for as many candidates as there are positions to fill, with a straight plurality electing.

Gullible freshmen might not be the proper guineapigs for this system since an Estes Kefauver sort of candidate for the Jubilee Committee could handshake himself into office by seeing a hundred of his less perceptive classmates. For freshman, a system based on a weighted ballot, giving the first preference ten points, the second nine, and so on might be an improvement. Of course, this system might present tabulation difficulties to the Council, but special member could always be appointed from the Mathematics Department.

The present system is so complicated that many, or even most Council members cannot understand it. It should be simplified so that they can worry about more significant issues.