McKay said that in past years, executive-seathopefuls would "stack the council," persuadingtheir friends to run in order to increase theirbases of support within the council once theexecutive elections were held.

"The extension was critical," he said. "Withoutit we would have had a council very similar tothat of past years, when incumbents would recruittheir friends to run and not too many other peoplecared."

While there are a lot of familiar names amongthe winners, McKay said he was pleasantlysurprised with the results. "As opposed to pastyears, everyone on the council this year seemslike they really want to be there," he said.

While McKay agreed that Fine had been a "largepresence" on the council, he said he was veryhappy with the caliber of students running forexecutive seats next week.

"We're going to be much more effective thisyear," McKay predicted.

Garza praised the increased number of women onthe council, and agreed that the diversity of thecandidate pool reflected the deadline extension.

But Beys contended that last Monday's "mad rushof applications" was not necessarily indicative ofa more varied group of candidates. "These mighthave been people who would have turned [theirapplications] in on Friday but just waited aroundwhen they found out they had extra time," he said.

Beys said it was ironic that Dunster House,where the initial request for an extensionoriginated, yielded only three official candidatesfor their five allotted seats.

Other races proved far more competitive,resulting in the upsets of incumbent candidates.Eliot and North Houses had the most candidates,with 14 and 12 respectively