As Polls Close, Race Still Too Close to Call

With voting for the top two positions of the Undergraduate Council (UC) set to end at noon today, candidates went door to door last night in a final effort to sway potential voters in an election that many say is too close to call.

“I don’t know,” said Matthew R. Greenfield ’08, who is a member of the the John S. Haddock ’07-Annie R. Riley ’07 campaign. “There are a ton of factors at play. The changing dynamics not just during the campaign but during the election itself are going to make the outcome interesting.”

As of 11 p.m. last night, more than 3,300 students had voted, according to the UC’s website.

When the campaign season started almost two weeks ago, many assumed that John F. Voith ’07 and running-mate Tara Gadgil ’07 would be the ticket to beat.

“On paper, just looking at the candidates themselves, I think you can say that they came into it as favorites, but it wasn’t theirs to lose,” said Andrew H. Golis ’06, who has followed the election on his blog, Cambridge Common.

Both Voith and Gadgil are the respective chairs of their UC committees. Voith is the chair of the Campus Life Committee, and Gadgil is the chair of the Student Affairs Committee.

But that momentum seemed to shift in the first week of campaigning after last Wednesday’s debate and when the Haddock-Riley campaign picked up a series of high-profile endorsements, including the Harvard College Democrats and the Black Students Association.

On Sunday night, The Crimson obtained an e-mail from a staffer on the Voith-Gadgil campaign written to a member of the Magnus Grimeland ’07 campaign asking Grimeland and running-mate Thomas D. Hadfield ’08 to drop out of the race and “join forces” against Haddock and Riley.

Then, on Monday, the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, and Supporters Alliance and the Harvard Republican Club issued a joint statement condemning Voith and Gadgil for making contradictory statements to their groups about the role of the military on campus.

The Crimson endorsed Voith and Gadgil Sunday evening, but then rescinded that endorsement Tuesday.

Early yesterday morning, Voith acknowledged his campaign’s stumbles.

“I realize that Tara and I have made mistakes in the last weeks,” Voith wrote in an e-mail over the UC open list. “We should have kept closer tabs on our campaign staff, and it is now apparent that we should have been more clear with where we stood on various issues, as was evident in our answers to the BGLTSA and the HRC.”

But Daniel A. Koh ’07, Voith and Gadgil’s campaign manager, said that spirits were high on the campaign.

“Right now, John, Tara, and I feel great,” said Koh. “We feel confident. It has been such a great experience, no matter the outcome.”

The Voith-Gadgil campaign has not been the only ticket to revise its initial statements.

Although Haddock originally advocated a student referendum on the council’s role in campus-wide social events, since the beginning of the campaign he has argued that the council should not have any involvement in campus social programming. Haddock also said that he would now support a separate programming board—something that he did not explicitly support at the beginning of his campaign.

While Grimeland and Hadfield have been able to stay above the scandals, their candidacy has—in the minds of many council commentators—been stuck in third place.

Greenfield maintained that in a race full of ups and downs, anything was possible.

“From Magnus and Tom, you can learn that any ticket is a ticket to take seriously,” said Greenfield. “They have shown to be very competent.”

But whoever wins this evening will have to unite a campus that has been divided among the three tickets.

“It’s a challenge that any president-elect and vice-president-elect will face,” said current UC President Matthew J. Glazer ’06. “But I am confident that the UC will be able to rally behind who is the winner. The organization and the campus will be fine.”

—Staff writer Alexander D. Blankfein can be reached at ablankf@fas.harvard.edu.