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Eighty-eight students declared their candidacy for 44 seats available on Harvard’s Undergraduate Council, according to a list announced by the UC Election Commission in a Sunday email.

This year’s field of candidates grew somewhat over last year’s, which drew 73 candidates.

The numbers of both upperclassmen and freshmen announcing their candidacies increased over last year but, in line with previous trends, far more freshmen are running for spots than upperclassmen. This year, 53 freshmen announced campaigns, compared to 35 upperclassmen.

The freshman candidates are competing for 12 reserved spots on the Council, making this a particularly competitive semester. Last year only 34 first-years ran for a seat, and in the case of Elm Yard, it was a non-competitive race. Now, every Yard is competitive, with at least ten candidates in each Yard competing for the three available spots.

Elections will not be competitive in the following Houses: Dunster, Adams, Eliot, Mather, Cabot, Pforzheimer, Winthrop, and Dudley. Mather, Cabot, and Winthrop have fewer candidates than available seats, which means there will be some vacancies on the Council this semester.

Lowell will be the most competitive House this election, with seven students competing for three seats.

There are also some former UC representatives who left the Council and are now running for a seat, such as former Lowell House representative Samyra C. Miller ’21.

“I thought that it was a good time for me to once again try to come back to the Council,” Miller said. She mentioned the “plethora of student voices” that she has access to, as Miller runs an Instagram account with a large following of Harvard students and will be doing a podcast with The Crimson called The Harvard Communitea.

Campaigning began at 12 p.m. EST on Sunday. Voting will open on Tuesday and both voting and campaigning periods will end on Thursday at midnight.

This year’s Election Commission’s rules handbook states that candidates must follow social distancing guidelines in the midst of the pandemic.

— Staff writer Hannah J. Martinez can be contacted at hannah.martinez@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @martinezhannahj.