Free Speech Referendum results: The results: 1. Should MIT guarantee its students the same freedom of speech that students have at public universities? paper athena total % voting % total Yes 699 680 1379 86% 76% No 87 129 216 14% 12% Abstain 98 122 220 -- 12% Total 884 931 1815 100% 100% 2. Should students have the freedom to express unpopular or controversial views? paper athena total % voting % total Yes 730 716 1446 89% 80% No 78 89 167 11% 9% Abstain 76 126 202 -- 11% Total 884 931 1815 100% 100% 3. Should the MIT harassment policy, which currently restricts constitutionally protected speech, be revised to provide protection for freedom of speech? paper athena total % voting % total Yes 537 484 1021 67.3% 56.3% No 207 289 496 32.7% 27.3% Abstain 140 158 298 -- 16.4% Total 884 931 1815 100.0% 100.0% Analysis: It is interesting that question 2's no vote is so high, since question 2 is (to be honest) a bit of a platitude in the minds of thinking people. If we deduct these 167 irrational voters (who presumably voted no across the board), we are left with a small number of no votes. Question 3 did disappointingly badly, but given criticism in the Tech and the fact that voters are not fully representative, it was an acceptable result. Athena voters were more skeptical, and voted against the questions more often. I believe they wanted more details and were skeptical about the apparent slant in the questions. The questions were written with the paper ballot voter (who generally votes in a hurry) in mind. Even after David Kessler's attack on the referendum in the Tuesday Tech, paper balloting was still more favorable to question 3 -- over 5-2 for as opposed to less than 5-3 on athena. The Election Commission's decision to bar informational materialson athena may have hurt.