The Undergraduate Council voted last night to exclude official position papers for and against an increase in the Student Activities Fee from the online referendum ballot.

The papers—which were to accompany the online ballot—were removed after questions were raised about their factual accuracy.

“I’d rather have [students] have no information than bad information,” said Sawalla J. Guseh ’06, who proposed the exclusion.

Proponents of the position paper—who have had their written argument prepared for nearly a week—accused the opposing side of not being adequately prepared.

“What should have happened is that we should have talked about this [at last week’s meeting] and brought the amended versions this week,” said Russell M. Anello ’04. “The con side did not live up to what it was supposed to do.”

Guseh also questioned the truth of argument from the con side.

“I can’t trust their facts,” said Guseh, referring to the presentation by the opponents. “What I don’t like is when someone comes up here and spits out facts that we haven’t seen before.”

The accusations of incorrect information and lack of preparedness were also asserted by the opposition, though to a lesser degree.

Joseph R. Oliveri ’05 said that the graphs showing the fee at different schools were unfair to readers because they often include other services that would not necessarily be funded by the fee hike.

“Both papers are misleading,” said Oliveri.

Jason L. Lurie ’05 told the council members that they should focus more on the accuracy of the position papers, and less on their personal opinions on the issue.

Lurie’s advice did little to ease the debate, and council members continued to pick apart each other’s position papers, charging that graphs, figures and sentences were misleading and incorrect.

Sawalla’s motion to remove position papers eventually halted the debate. The council approved his motion, 32-3, with one abstention.

Following the vote, Lurie made a motion that would require the council to reconsider the issue of the position papers at its meeting next Sunday and thus, postpone the fee increase referendum—slated to start this Wednesday—for another week. P.K. Agarwalla ’04 initially seconded the motion, though he eventually changed his mind—a reversal that led to the failure of Lurie’s motion.

Lurie explained after the meeting that his motion was an attempt to ensure that a temporary majority in this week’s meeting would not overturn a careful decision to have “two full position papers” originally made by the council.