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Show Editorials False Efficiency April 25 is election clay at the University, the clay when students will elect their officers of-ficers for the coming year. The number of students voting in this year's election will probably be significantly smaller than last year, and for a good reason: the Union will be the only location where students may go to cast their ballots. The apparent reason for setting up the voting machines in the Union exclusively is to prevent over-enthusiastic students from voting more than once. This is a meritorious effort on the part of the Elections Committee to insure a fair election. But the problem is that the majority of University students do not frequent the Union regularly. Accord-in Accord-in to a recent survey, an average of 5,000 stL ients visit the Union each day. It is likely thpt even on an election day the number of sti lents who frequent the Union would not increase substantially. For many students it is downright inconvenient to have to go to the Union to vote. This is particularly applicable in the case of law and medical students. The Gomittee hopes that curiosity about the voting machines will bring these students to the Union. But participation would be further increased if this factor could be combined with the advantages of booth distribution. If the main reason for having the voting machines located in the Union is to prevent students from voting more than once, why not devise some system of recording who has voted and who hasn't? The Chronicle recommends that a workable work-able system of recording who has voted be developed through the use of the student activity card. The sticker and the back of the activity card has several boxes, each one containing a number. When a student votes, one of the number could be blacked out. The person at the voting table would merely be required to check the identification card carefully to make certain the right person was voting. The placing of a voting machine on one location on campus in a way defeats the purpose of checking against a stuffed ballot box. If fewer students vote because of the inconvencience in voting, the election is not much more accurate and representative of the entire studentbocly's voice than is a stuffed stuff-ed ballot box. In order to guarantee a reasonable rea-sonable representation of student voice in the election, balloting places should be located in centralized places all over campus. The excuse that the box may be stuffed is not a problem which has no solution. |