A computer glitch kept midyear students from voting for their class representatives in last month's Student Union elections, marking the second such incident this academic year, Union Secretary Aaron Braver '07 said."I'm clearly upset that people who should be able to vote aren't able to vote," Braver said. "I'd like to see it fixed."

Braver said the error stems from the Union's online voting system, which predates the existence of the midyear class, the first of which matriculated at Brandeis in January 2004. He said the registrar sets midyear graduation terms as the end of the fall semester that would mark students' eighth semester of enrollment.

The error was supposed to have been fixed after midyears from the class of 2007 were unable to vote in a race for class senator Nov. 18, Braver said. After receiving complaints from midyears following that election, Braver said Union leaders met with staff from Library and Technology Services, the registrar's office and the department of Student Life to discuss solutions to the problem.

"We came up with an algorithm that would work for the system and allow midyears to be computed for the correct year and LTS told us it would be implemented," he said.

After the Union election two weeks ago, however, Braver said he received over 20 e-mails from students unable to vote in the appropriate race.

He contacted Senior Vice President of Student and Enrollment Jean Eddy, who referred him to Vice President for Information Technology Perry Hansom. Braver met again with LTS staff last week, but he said a solution had not been implemented as of Friday, the last time he was able to check.

Hansom was unable to comment on the election problems, and LTS staff who had knowledge of the situation were unavailable at press time.

"I just think that LTS has a very busy plate," Braver said. "They have a lot of stuff that they have to deal with that is actually vital to the everyday operation of the University, and sometimes things get put on the back burner."

The scope of the voting system's failure remains unclear. While Braver said the glitch affected midyears from all classes except 2009, which has no previous class to conflict with, several 2008 midyears said they had not experienced any problems when voting in the recent election.

Midyear student Vikram Sinha '07 said he tried to vote for his class senator in the recent Union election but was transferred to the 2008 senatorial race. He said he feels the computer error is reflective of broader campus attitudes toward midyear students.

"I just feel the midyears are like this kind of second group of people at Brandeis," he said. "We're technically class of 2007, but we're not in many ways."

Sinha related the incident to the midyear experience in general.

"It's just one of those things that happens when you're a midyear," he said. "When these things come up, you just kind of roll with it because, I mean, we're kind of used to it, actually.