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www.dailytarheel.com
Ease, Speed of Online Voting Boost Turnout
By Stacey Geyer
Staff Writer
With four races heading into runoffs
next week, one of the few concrete
results from election day is this year’s
increased voter
participation.
The 2001
election attract-
student 2001]
ed 5,837 total voters, 2,074 votes more
than last year’s election. Election
turnout for 1999 was even lower at
3,663 votes, while 1998 elections totaled
4,210 votes.
Jeremy Tuchmayer, chairman of the
Board of Elections, said the debut of
online voting definitely helped increase
voter turnout.
“The ease with which the voting
process occurred - there were no lines
and (students) could do it before class,
after class, even in class if they have a
laptop,” he said.
Interest
Low for
Congress
Minimal voting returns and
low member return rate
point to Student Congress'
student-interest problems.
By Grec Steffensen
Staff Writer
Junior William Southern won 100
percent of the votes for the 25th dis
trict’s Student Congress representative.
All two of them.
It was one of the many results in
Tuesday’s
Student
Congress elec
tions that reflect-
student 20011
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ed the low student interest in the con
gressional races.
Despite this year’s record election
turnout, serious participation in con
gressional elections was still so low that
jokers were able to vote UNC sports
starjulius Peppers into office five times.
“It was kind of disappointing,” said
Board of Elections Chairman Jeremy
Tuchmayer of this year’s slate of con
gressional candidates. “We were hoping
for more interest. But it isn’t always a
fun job.”
Eleven districts were won unani
mously.
Tied races, such as the one that
See CONGRESS, Page 4
Napster Decision Gets
Some Students Riled
By Noelle Hutchins
Staff Writer
A recent legal decision that will force
Napster Inc. to stop allowing its users to
share copyrighted materials has elicited
emotional responses from many student
users.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals ruled Monday that Napster
must stop permitting users to share most
mp3 files using the company’s software.
Napster software, which can be
downloaded off the Web, enables users
to locate and trade mp3s - compressed
music files -with other Napster users.
The site has become popular among
college students nationwide, and many
UNC students fear the ruling will deny
them access to music.
“I think (the ruling is) stupid because
Napster makes a lot of songs and small
Men always want to be a woman's first love women like to be a man's last romance.
Oscar Wilde
Students who headed to computers to
participate in the election process
agreed with Tuchmayer’s assessment.
“It was so easy,” said junior Neil Foto.
“How could you not vote? It took
absolutely, what, 45 seconds of my
time.”
Other students said that while the
convenience of online voting was a vast
improvement from long lines and paper
ballots, it wasn’t their main motivation
for voting.
“I guess the biggest reason was that I
was on Annie Peirce’s campaign team,”
said junior Eddie Falco. “But I probably
would have voted anyway.”
The number of candidates running
for student body president was another
key reason cited from students for why
they voted.
Tuchmayer said the number of can
didates “who got their names out”
helped increase voter turnout and might
be one reason for the four runoff races.
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Senior Charles Gouch helps his girlfriend, sophomore Katherine Kinard, into a horse-drawn buggy that picked the couple up at Alderman Residence Hall
for their Valentine's Day date. They planned to ride the bugqy to Cafe La Rez. Charles has been dating Katherine for eight months and loves to surprise
her with creative ways to take her out on a date. For his last year at UNC, he wanted to find an alternative to the standard "dinner and a movie."
groups easily accessible that usually
don’t get national attention,” said sopho
more Joy Blackmon, who said she was
frustrated by the ruling.
But Marian Moore, vice chancellor
for information technology, said students
should not be affected by the federal rul
ing because the UNC Honor Code
already makes it illegal for students to
share copyrighted information, includ
ing mp3s. She said students are permit
ted to download songs that are not copy
righted, but much of the music accessible
on Napster is copyrighted.
And Moore said students do not real
ize the severity of the charges they
might face. Copyright owners can file
charges against students and students
might also face punitive fines within the
Honor Court system, she said.
See NAPSTER, Page 4
Dear Dot-Com ...
Former student's Web site provides
advice on love and relationships.
See Page 3
Serving the students and the University community since 1893
It was this level of commitment from
the candidates to advertising their plat
forms that was attractive to some stu
dents.
“Most of the candidates addressed
issues important to me, like the South
Campus construction,” said freshman
Emily Davidson.
Despite the increased turnout, the
majority of the student body did not par
ticipate.
Some students said busy schedules or
a lack of knowledge about the candi
dates and issues prevented them from
voting.
“I didn’t vote mostly because I didn’t
know any of the platforms of the candi
dates,” said sophomore Mary Cort.
Tuchmayer said although he would
like to see online voting help increase
turnout exponentially, other factors
make it unlikely.
See TURNOUT, Page 4
MADAME, YOUR CHARIOT AWAITS
Copyright Issues
UNC officials say thymnt Napster ruling
has no effect on UNC s potkyoward
copyright lajiglw
■ Napster Ruling jf
The 9th in
San Francisco founalfflulapster was
involved in "contributory and vicarious
infringement" and had full
knowledge that it was allowing its users to
infringe on copyright laws.
The court also said that Napster must lock
out those users who exchange copyrighted
songs without permission.
Napster is allowed to stay in business
until a lower court redrafts the injunction.
■ University Policy
It is a violation of the Student Honor Code to
make illegal copies of copyrighted materials
or other intellectual property.
UNC students can download songs that are
not copyrighted ... but many of Napster's
songs do not fall in this category.
SOURCE ASSOCIATED PRESS. UNC HONOR CODE
Rackin' Up the Votes
Nearly 1,500 more students voted in this year's student elections than any other year since 1995.
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SOURCE' DTH ARCHIVES 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001
Tantalizing E-mail Sends Virus
By Lucas Fenske
Assistant State & National Editor
Computer users receiving an e-mail
claiming to have a picture of sex symbol
and tennis star Anna Koumikova might
be in for an unwelcome surprise when
they find a computer vims instead.
But UNC
officials say the
vims, which
preys . on
Kournikova’s
widespread sex
appeal, has
Dutch Hacker
Goes to Police
With Confession
See Page 9
caused few problems on campus.
The vims arrives as an e-mail attach
ment with a subject fine “Here you have,
;o)” and contains an attachment named
“AnnaKoumikova.jpg. vbs.”
But when users click on the file, they
download a vims instead of a picture of
the young Russian tennis player.
Symantec, which specializes in virus
protection software, released a protec-
4 *4* 4 4
tion program for the vims Monday on
its Web site, http://www.sarc.com.
According to the Symantec Web site,
the vims is rated a four on a scale from
one to five, with five being the most dan
gerous, because the “AnnaKoumikova”
vims is difficult to contain and spreads
easily.
But Sherry Graham, Academic
Technology & Networks director of
response services, said the vims was not
a large problem on campus, causing less
damage than similar viruses like the “I
Love You” vims, which hit thousands of
computers worldwide last year.
Both vimses spread through e-mail,
using the address book in infected com
puters to send itself to other users.
Graham said it was hard to know
how many students had caught the
virus. “I’ve got three infected messages
myself,” she said. “I just hit the delete
key.”
Graham said ATN officials have set
up a filter on the UNC servers to keep
Soggy
Today: Showers, 70
Friday: Showers, 61
Saturday: Cloudy, 62
Thursday, February 15, 2001
ECHHS:
Class Rank
Should Go
East Chapel Hill High School
is trying to overturn state
law requiring schools to list
class rank on transcripts.
By Carolyn Pearce
Staff Writer
East Chapel Hill High School admin
istrators are awaiting a decision from the
state that would allow the school to drop
class rank from students’ transcripts.
ECHHS principal David Thaden
said class rank is not a good indicator of
the students’ abilities because many
ECHHS pupils are being disqualified
from competitive colleges because the
quality of the school system is so high.
“We have a strong suspicion that the
kids from the bottom half of the top
third of the class are dropped from the
initial stages of the college admission
process,” Thaden said. “We think that
the kids are grouped into a percentage
and are not evaluated as individuals.”
The state of North Carolina requires
that all public high schools use the same
Student Information Management
System. The system automatically
places class rank on all transcripts.
Last winter, ECHHS submitted a
request for a waiver that would drop class
rank from transcripts. The request was
approved by the Chapel Hill-Carrboro
“Board of Education and then submitted
to the Department of Public Instruction.
The waiver was then sent to UNC-system
officials for review.
Thaden said the school expects an offi
cial decision to be rendered this spring,
but an exact date was not given. But he
also said school officials have been told
by several sources that there was no
chance it could be approved. “We were
informally told that there is no way to
grant this,” Thaden said. “We don’t have
the authority to do it unilaterally.”
Charles Coble, UNC-system vice
president of university and school pro
grams, said the state board would have
to review the rationale and the impact
of the request before reaching a deci
sion. “I doubt the board will simply give
its approval. It will be precedent setting,
and they’ll want to make sure they have
all the information,” he said.
Thaden said that students who take
advanced classes wouldn’t suffer from
the new system. “The students who take
Advanced Placement classes would still
get extra points on their (grade point
average),” Thaden said. “We aren’t
doing away with the GPA system.”
The waiver originally was proposed
See CLASS RANK, Page 4
students from getting the infected mes
sage - blocking about 10,000 e-mails.
Graham said ATN also put up an
announcement on its Web page soon
after the “AnnaKoumikova” bug was
discovered, directing users to informa
tion about the vims.
She said some of the worst problems
occurred when infected users attempted
to e-mail the person they received the
virus from - clogging the network and
slowing e-mail delivery to a crawl.
She said the vims problem is not as
severe as in years past due to computer
users’ experience dealing with vimses
and an increased usage in programs that
identify and destroy the infected pro
grams.
“People have put up more blocks on
their computers,” she said. “They’re just
smarter now (when dealing with vims
es).”
The State & National Editor can be
reached at stntdesk@unc.edu.