Council Reconsiders Election

More than a week after this year's Undergraduate Council representative elections, Samuel K. Nelson '92 yesterday resigned from his Mather House seat under criticism that he had violated election campaign guidelines.

In addition, the council yesterday announced that it had recounted the votes from Cabot House, and awarded the fifth seat to Wayne W. Yu '92 instead of Robert A. Martinez '92. The council had declared Martinez the winner last week.

Late last week, Evan B. Rauch '91, newly elected council chair, said that Jeffrey M. Perlman '93 was considering appealing the results of the Mather House election. According to Rauch, Perlman alleged that Nelson violated election rules by speaking "to total strangers within 10 to 15 feet from the polls."

"After reading the [election] by-laws, I resigned," said Nelson. "And even though there was a possibility that I could retain my seat, I didn't want my integrity questioned. When I was campaigning, I wasn't aware of any violations."

Christopher J. Borgen '91, the council's treasurer, announced last night that the council would contact the Mather House committee regarding how to fill the vacant Mather seat.

As for the Cabot House race, Borgen said that the council's executive board ruled yesterday that Yu should have Cabot House's fifth seat on the council. Rauch, who is Yu's roommate, stated that he and Martinez reviewed the tallies in the Cabot House elections and found various errors.

"I went down the grain analysis sheet and found in the first round that they had added up the numbers wrong," said Rauch. "The total number was 150 instead of 156, which is what it should be. In the last round, the redistributing was also done wrong."

After Rauch and Martinez examined the results, Borgen and Eugene S. Kim '92, a member of the executive board, recounted the votes on Thursday night.

"Well, basically, Evan came to the executive board and said that there seemed to be a discrepancy," said Borden. "Obviously, since he knows Wayne, he got two unbiased sources, Eugene and myself [to recount the votes]."

The council uses a variation of the proportional representation system to tally votes. That system insures that second and third preference votes still count.

"Well, Cabot House decided that they wanted Wayne Yu," said Martinez. "I concede the seat to Wayne and wish him well."