Word: voting
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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From the viewpoint of the eldest daughter, the affection of Mama for her family is a very real thing --and so it is presented. The plot closely approaches soap-opera funny business in places, but any hokum is carefully avoided by careful character delineation and a constant vote of the ridiculous. It is hard to believe that the family would remain convinced that Mama's imaginary bank account was real; but acceptance of this anyth is so credibly presented that it isn't questioned. Well selected close-ups of the children's faces enhance the authority of Mama...
There was throughout the two-week poll no ambiguity about this majority requirement, which had been set by the Student Government "so that there would be no chance of anything being railroaded through." As late as last Friday, just three days before the end of the lengthy vote, the Radcliffe News in a front-page editorial pointed out that"...every student knew, or should have known, (the ballot) required a majority vote of the college--i.e. 461 ballots, not just a majority of the voters--for or against any issue to have it settled...
When the new Student Government officers were confronted with the results of the vote on Monday afternoon, they had a clear course of action before them. They should have declared the vote on the News void and waited for a petition for another ballot before taking any further action. Such a decision would have kept faith with the voters and followed a standard precedent for dealing with such problems...
...change the methods of such a vote after it has been completed is more than a simple alteration: it affects the nature of the vote. In any parliamentary group which needs a specific percentage of the total membership to pass a bill, an abstention is equivalent to a vote against the bill. A Senator who refuses to sign a cloture petition helps to keep it from gaining its necessary two-thirds total, and a similar situation prevailed at Radcliffe under the announced rules of this balloting...
...effect, then, the officers of Student Government simply ignored the evident legal aspects of their decision, which meant that they had conducted their vote under false pretenses. They sacrificed legality in a blunt way for expediency...