Council Vote Today

Voting begins today to elect members of the second Undergraduate Council, with polls open In House dining halls and the Freshman Union during lunch and dinner through Friday.

Vetars will rank candidates in order of preference, and the top five from each district (except Quincy and Leverett Houses, which have six seats), will make up the 87 members of the council, Harvard's first funded student government.

Since the closing of nominations Sunday, about seven write-in candidates have joined those officially on the ballot, bolstering the paucity of candidates which made three Houses' elections uncontested, according to Sesha A. Pratap '84. Pratap, former chairman of the council, is helping direct this year's election.

Pratap believes voter turnout will parallel the drop in candidates, saying that he expects it to fall below last year's level of 54 percent.

"The biggest factor which determines turnout is the amount the candidates campaign--in Houses where there is no contest we expect a serious decline," Pratap said.

Student ratification of the council's constitution in the spring of 1982 dissolved the former student government, the Student Assembly, founded in 1978.