While the University still doesn't know how many tickets will be available for former President Bill Clinton's address on campus Dec. 3, over 70 percent of students as of last Friday registered for the online lottery for ticket distribution, Brandeis spokeswoman Lorna Miles said. A definitive number of tickets for students hasn't been determined yet because details for the event are "changing day-to-day," Miles explained. Approximately 2,400 undergraduate students registered for the lottery system as of last Friday, Miles said. According to the Office of Admissions, 3,304 undergraduate students are enrolled at Brandeis.

While registration for the lottery ended before midnight last Sunday, more recent numbers from Library and Technology Services regarding how many seats will be open and how many students have registered weren't available as of press time. Students who are awarded tickets through the lottery will be notified via e-mail this coming Monday, while those who don't receive tickets won't be notified.

Clinton will speak in honor of the late Eli Segal '64, his former adviser in whose honor a new Citizen Leadership Program in the Heller School for Social Policy and Management was recently established.

There were roughly 1,700 seats available for former President Jimmy Carter's speech last January, which was held in the Shapiro Gymnasium of the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center, the same venue where the Clinton event will be held. Over 1,000 students waited in a line in the Shapiro Campus Center Atrium, but which spilled outside, for tickets to the Carter event. With this year's online registration, there will be a large number of students who registered for tickets who won't be able to attend the speech.

"We are working to have as many seats available as possible, but unavoidably we will have fewer seats than people who want to go," Miles said.

Students should have received an e-mail containing instructions about online registration for the lottery last Tuesday, but the message wasn't sent out until last Wednesday. Miles said the e-mail was delayed because LTS didn't have all the necessary information on time. There were also problems with the link to the registration page in the late e-mail.

"The major problem with the first e-mail was that the URL did not work," Miles said. This was partly the result of so many people were trying to register at the same time, which "brought the system almost to a halt," Miles explained.

Another e-mail was sent out later Wednesday containing a functional link. Miles assured students in this e-mail that their registration time wouldn't determine whether or not they get tickets, as long as they registered before midnight last Sunday.

The lottery system was instituted as an alternative to a line this year because "We had the time and the capacity to [make it work]," Miles said. "The use of online registration seemed to even the playing field for people who might have classes, exams, games or other commitments that would prevent them from waiting on line," she added.

The University is not hosting the Clinton event in Gosman's larger gym to avoid clogging up traffic in Waltham, Miles said.

"When the University hosts a large event like this, we have to be conscious of our relationship with the city of Waltham," she said. "Since [the speech] will take place on a Monday, we have to be aware of community relations and do our best not to increase the traffic load on the city."

Miles also noted that the Secret Service, the security force that protects all current and former presidents, used a specific formula when Carter came to Brandeis, and that at this point, discussions are still underway regarding security issues for this speech.

Student opinions are mixed on the use of an online lottery for the distribution of tickets.

"I feel that first-come, first-serve is always more fair to students," Juhi Chadha '09 said. "The lottery makes it so easy to register that students who don't care very much [about seeing the speaker] still have the opportunity to secure a seat."

"There is a lot of chaos associated with masses of people standing in line, getting frantic while they wait for tickets," said Emily Gatzke '11, adding that the online registration should eliminate the disorder of a ticket line.