Although amendments to the Undergraduate Council's constitution that would require popular elections of its president and vice president were called for last spring, the council still has not passed the package of changes to its bylaws necessary for such elections to actually take place.

At last night's meeting, former council vice-president Justin C. Label '96 expressed disappointment that this fundamental change to the council's structure has not yet been made.

"I'm getting nervous," Label told council members. "When we originally spoke about getting a bylaws package, we planned to have elections before Christmas break. It doesn't look like that's going to happen now."

Label is not alone in criticizing the council's current administration for not pushing through a package sooner. Many council members say they believe the council will lose legitimacy in the eyes of students and administrators if elections are not implemented soon.

Council executives, notably council president Robert M. Hyman '97-'98 and vice-president Brian R. Blais '97, defended their records in interviews last night, saying the elections are too important to be rushed into.

Hyman and Blais have both been working with an unofficial committee formed this semester to discuss the issues associated with the bylaw changes. According to them, such a forum is the best way to fully consider all of the possibilities.

"We have had a working group meeting since the week after Rob and I took office," Blais said. "We wanted to introduce a package early and have elections in December, but there are so many issues: who can run, when we have them, how to administer them, how to enforce spending caps. We don't want to run into this without discussing them."

According to Hyman, times and places for these meetings have been announced at the beginning of every council meeting, but many of those who have objected to the lack of progress have not been part of the process, he added.

Several plans are now being considered by that committee, among them ideas to hold elections either at the beginning of February or in April.

In either case, most council members seem to be in favor of officers holding year-long terms.

Label, however, said he thinks the best way to run elections is to have new officers take over first thing in the spring semester, serve over the summer and come back in the fall to lead the council to its next elections.

Blais and Hyman say the possibility still exists that elections will be held this semester, perhaps during reading period. The other alternative would be to hold elections early next semester.

Label said holding elections at these times would be inadvisable because they are particularly busy times for students, and there would be extremely low voter turnout.

"Elections should be in December, and that option has been subtilely usurped," Label said. "Everyone running for president this semester said this was a top priority and needed to be taken care of in the first couple of weeks. It's clear the council is not taking this as a priority.

"Essentially, if we don't have a popularly elected president by February first, we'll look like a joke," he added.

Blais disagreed, saying poorly run popular elections would be far more destructive to the council.