ASPC elections held this past week resulted in few conclusions and renewed uncertainties about the election process. Out of the six races for positions available in the student senate, only two have produced a clear winner at this time. Three others are conducting run-offs, and a fourth, the race for North Campus Representative, has been delayed by violations of the election code.

The races awaiting run-offs are for Freshman Representative, Sophomore Representative, and South Campus Representative.

Omayra Ortega ’00 will be taking office as Off Campus Representative, and will work to revive the Saferides program. Garrett Miller, the new Junior Class Representative, intends to inform students more actively concerning senate issues.

Robi Ganguly ’00, who is running for North Campus Senator, was reported to have left election fliers posted after the removal deadline. "My understanding is that the election code is kind of ambiguous," commented Ganguly. The candidate interpreted the guidelines to require that only materials near a voting area be removed.

Sports Commissioner Dan Silberstein ’00 is assisting with this year’s elections and has experienced difficulties with the election code before. As a member of ASPC Senate last year, he and others had sought to reform the guidelines to ensure clarity. Silberstein admits that the failure to complete this task last year has caused problems, and the issue must once more be addressed.

Jon Vanasco ’00 is also running for North Campus Representative. "Something like this happens every year. No one respects the election code. If you break it, the elections commissioner does nothing, and if you adhere to it, you’ll probably lose. Spending limits are almost never followed, posting guidelines are completely ignored, and no candidate has ever been penalized or disqualified," said Vanasco.

Regarding the posting of fliers, the code itself reads: "Each candidate must remove all campaign materials by the end of the campaign period." The guidelines define the end of the campaign period as one hour before voting begins.

"The election code is very ambiguous and calls for a lot of discretion. What happened was really no one’s fault," added Silberstein. In most cases, said Silberstein, nobody enforces such minor violations. However, because the race for North Campus Representative was so close, the decision was made to conduct it again.