In an atmosphere charged with controversy over election procedure and residual tensions from last semester's diversity disputes, Law School students will begin voting today for student government representatives.

Conflict between sympathizers of the leftwing Coalition for Civil Rights and more moderate factions at the school boiled over early last week, when the student council's executive board voted to extend the candidate filing deadline.

Some students, including those affiliated with the newly-formed Non-Left Coalition, alleged that the decision was made to allow more civil rights coalition members and allies time to file. In interviews yesterday and Monday, they charged that four of the five executive council members are sympathetic with the views of the Coalition for Civil Rights, and used their positions to attempt to load the student council with their allies.

The executive board members, who in a nearly unprecedented emergency session voted to extend the deadline, countered that the move was fair and necessary. Second--year Law student Raul Perez, the board's administrative vice president and election commissioner, called the accusations "paranoid balderdash."

"They suspect this phantom movement to take over the Law School Council," Perez said. He said the filing deadline, originally Sept. 18, was extended one week after he found that some applications for office had been misplaced.

But Executive Vice President Enu A. Mainigi told The Crimson Monday that "I think it was very tacitly understood that this would give [the other members of the executive board] time to organize and get the people to run who they wanted to run.

"A little trick like this is just reallysnippy. It brings down the reputation of the LawSchool Council," said Mainigi, a second-year lawstudent who identifies herself as the onlymoderate on the executive board and who was notpresent at the meeting where the decision toextend the filing deadline was made.

Today and tomorrow students are choosing 16representatives to sit on the full council.Balloting for executive board positions occurredlast spring.

The conflict between sympathizers of theCoalition for Civil Rights, which represents sixminority student groups and the Women's LawCouncil, and more centrist students, is both aproduct of last semester's bitter controversy overfaculty diversity and a preview of challenges tocome.

Last spring, coalition members and otherstudent activists participated in a high-profileseries of actions designed to draw attention tothe Law School's hiring policies and the issue offaculty diversity. During executive boardelections at the end of last year, alarger-than-usual student turnout put a number ofthose students on the board, among them Perez andcurrent president Marie-Louise Ramsdale.

The newly-elected board members vowed at thetime, and say now, that the council should play amore active role at the school than it has in thepast.

"More than anything we're antistatus quo," saidRamsdale, a third-year student. "There's more of astudent advocacy feeling coming out."

This stance worried some students and resultedin the creation of the Non-Left Coalition. Theperception that the Law School Council is "tryingto take over the campus," as Perez put it, is alsoresponsible for the furor resulting from thefiling delay and the corresponding possibility oflarge numbers of activist students elected to therepresentative positions.

Second-year student Greg P. Taxin, co-chair ofthe Non-Left Coalition, said that "thisyear...there is the anticipation that there willbe a much more active Law School Council."

"That scares a lot of people at the LawSchool," Taxin said. "That's what makes thiselection more controversial." He said the councilwill likely take sides on the issue of facultydiversity, which it has refrained from doing inthe past.

According to Ramsdale, however, "[the council]is just pro-student, and you can define that howyou want.

"My goal at this point is to work with theadministration," she said. "We have no plans to doanything quote-unquote radical."

Although the executive board of the Law SchoolCouncil could set an agenda, it may take no actionwithout the approval of the full council