If any of that information is incorrect, the person is asked to call the council office.

"If somehow somebody knows your ID number and your home zip code, you'll get this message and you'll know you didn't vote then," Silberstein explained.

In addition, any student who tries to vote from an account from which a vote has already been recorded will receive a message telling them they have already voted.

Students whose voting privileges have been violated will be asked to call the council office.

"We've spent lots of time thinking about everything that could go wrong and doubling security measures," Silberstein said.

Silberstein has been working with Eugene E. Kim '96, former president of the Harvard Computer Society, to expunge the bugs in the system.

According to Kim, enough security measures have been put in the system to make it reliable.

"In my opinion, it will be more reliable than the paper system," he said. "It will definitely give you better results."

While the system is not foolproof, Kim said he is optimistic it will work out.

"Things can always go wrong, especially in the computer world. Worst-case scenario they'll have to go back to the paper system, but I've looked at the code and it looks good to me," Kim said.

The votes for all students, not just first-years, will be counted electronically. Electronic tallying will make vote counts much more accurate, Silberstein said.

"According to our constitution and bylaws, we use the Hare proportional system to tally votes, which is the same as the class marshal elections," he said.

"It has been confusing in the past and taken the entire weekend to complete. This should tally the votes much more quickly," he added.

Since the program relies in part on the Harvard Arts and Sciences Computer System and requires the use of ID numbers, council members have been consulting with Assistant Dean of Students Sarah E. Flatley. On Thursday, they received the final authorization to implement this system