Glazer, however, attributed the lower turnout of candidates running to a better understanding of the commitments of the UC.

“It’s not as easy to be a representative,” said Glazer. “When I went door-to-door, one of the things I told everybody was to leave 10 hours a week. We obviously weren’t trying to discourage people, but we wanted candidates who knew about the time commitments.”

Some UC representatives cited other obligations as a reason not to seek reelection.

“I need to turn a little more time to my studies, want to focus a little bit more on that,” said E.E. Keenan ’07. “My reasons for not running again are really more out of necessity than out of desire. It kind of breaks my heart to leave the council.”

According to Michael B. Love ’08, chair of the Election Commission, if there are vacancies after the election, special elections will be held for the districts in question.

Despite the lack of candidates running, Love said that the number of new candidates running for UC representative positions is still relatively high.

“A majority of incumbents, and in fact a surprisingly large number, chose not to seek reelection this year. If they had, we actually would have had a noticeably larger number of candidates in the upperclass houses than last year,” Love wrote in an e-mail.

Glazer said he was not concerned with the low number of students running for seats on the council.

“The numbers don’t seem that off to me. I know there are a lot of strong candidates running write-in campaigns,” he said.

—Staff writer Alexander D. Blankfein can be reached at ablankf@fas.harvard.edu.