More than 100 false ballots have been received by he University in this year's elections for the Board of Overseers.

The ballots--complete with a facsimile of the signature of Sargent Kennedy '28, Secretary to the Corporation and the Board of Overseers--have been mailed to Kennedy's office during the past few weeks. They are identical to official ballots except that they are slightly smaller, have no notched corners, and include printed lines for name and address.

A large number on the ballots were mailed to members of the Class of 1941 in May by Francis C. Powers '41. On an enclosed card, he advised his classmates to use them "in the event that you have misplaced your original ballot." The cards addressed to Kennedy, read: "Herein is my official vote. If for any reason my vote will not be counted, please send me immediately an Official Ballot."

Powers, reached by phone at his Long Island home last night, declined to comment. "Speak to Langdon Marvin," he said. But he insisted that he had not worked together with Marvin ('41), who earlier this year made himself a candidate for the Board of Overseers through a petition drive. Marvin said yesterday that he knew nothing about the false ballots until he received one.

Kennedy said that the matter will be discussed by the Board of Overseers Thursday morning. The results of the election, in which 89,000 alumni were eligible to vote, are to be announced that afternoon.

The false ballots are only another twist in the most tangled Overseers election in the history of the University.

The man responsible for most of the embroilment is Marvin. Last month, for example, he sent alumni several hundred postcards with which they could request duplicate ballots. They were addressed to "Secretary. Harvard Board of Overseers, % 9 Francis Ave." 9 Francis Ave. is the address of Marvin H. Slobdokin '41, one of Marvin's supporters. After making a list of the 145 requests that were returned, Marvin's supporters dropped them off at Kennedy's office.

And he has brought in from New York the Honest Ballot Association, a nonprofit group that spends most of its time supervising union elections. They should be allowed, he argues, to stand by while Kennedy's staff counts the ballots and to check that the requests for duplicate ballots have been answered.

Marvin's position is that a number of alumni are being deprived of their votes because they lost their ballots, never noticed them, or never replaced them. And, he said in an interview yesterday, too few alumni--only 27 per cent last year--vote in the first place.

One reason, he claims, is that the election process is secretive and full of outmoded traditions. "After all, this is not an election to a skull and bones society," he said.

Specifically, Marvin wants the Overseers to:

* Let an agency such as the Honest Ballot Association review this year's election. "I'm not saying that it wasn't honest," he explained, "I just want to make sure that everyone who should have had a vote had one."

All of the false ballots should have been honored, he argues, since they were used by people who misplaced the real ones. And he claims that only 30 of the 145 people who requested duplicate ballots with his postcards received them. (According to Kennedy, the others all received letters asking them to specify their reasons for wanting another ballot and had ample time to reply.)

* Abandon the rule that Harvard and Radcliffe graduates have to wait five years before they can vote in the election.

* Make a bigger effort to find alumni whose addresses have been lost. And make it possible for alumni who live abroad to return their ballots without paying the postage themselves.