Honor Code votes tallied; one amendment adopted

The undergraduate student body registered strong support for three of the four changes to the Honor Code proposed by class senator Jonathan Chavkin '05 in student referenda this weekend, but the USG announced yesterday that only one garnered the 75 percent necessary to pass. The change will take effect in September.

The amendment letting an accused student bring a representative to the initial Honor Committee hearing passed with 76.8 percent of the vote. But the amendment to add two faculty members to the committee failed, receiving just 41.4 percent of the vote.

The two other amendments barely failed. The amendment requiring the penalty phase of the hearing to consider student intent received 73.6 percent, and the amendment requiring all interviews to be tape-recorded garnered 72.4 percent. About 2,000 students voted on the amendments, making each percentage point roughly equal to about 20 people.

Chavkin said yesterday that he would resubmit the failed amendments in the fall if the Honor Committee does not address them earlier. Honor Committee Chair Catherine Farmer '03 said the committee would not take up the amendments.

The approved amendment represents the first time in many years that a reform to the Honor Code has been passed independently of the Honor Committee. Though voting ended Sunday night, the results were only released late yesterday afternoon because of registrar problems verifying the vote, officials said.

USG president Pettus Randall '04 said that a high number of voters abstained from the Honor Code vote. "This many people usually don't abstain, and it confused us," he said.

Because of the results, he said, "We wanted to make sure all votes were accounted for." He added that the results were delayed because the decision to double check the election data was made after the Registrar's Office closed Monday night.

"There were issues regarding one of the files [containing the election data]," said Robert Bromfield, deputy registrar.

This weekend, it was unclear until near the closing time of voting Sunday whether abstentions on the referenda vote would be counted toward the total number of votes necessary to pass the amendments.

Farmer said the committee had urged students not to vote because members thought that if enough students abstained, the referenda would not go through. The USG announced late Sunday, however, that abstentions would not be counted.

About 50 percent of the students voting in the student government elections also voted on at least one of the referenda.

Farmer added that it was important to get 75 percent of the vote because she said students taking part in the referenda make up only a small number of all University graduates and students who will pass through the University in the future.

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In related news, runoff candidates for USG social chair were announced yesterday after a vote recount. Christopher Geisler '04 and Arianna Cooper '05 start facing off — along with all other students in runoffs — in an online vote that began at midnight this morning and ends tonight at 11:59 p.m.