The Undergraduate Student Government miscounted the responses to a referendum question, and left uncounted the replies to its demographic survey, in last week's USG elections.

Preliminary results released the night of the election indicated that students opposed adding a fall break to the University's schedule. But USG Head Elections Commissioner Wendy Goldstein said most students favored the fall break, and said the incorrect count resulted from a computer error.

The question asked students if they favored adding a fall break to the University's schedule and listed five options: No break; no classes during a five-day weekend in the Fall Semester; no classes on federal holidays such as Veterans Day and Columbus Day; a full week off during the semester; and the week of Thanksgiving off. Because of the error USG did not know students' responses to the last two options.

Even excluding the last two options, more students (1,536) voted for some variation of a fall break than not having one. However, the no-break option received the most total votes (1,420).

Goldstein and Candidacy and Campaigning Commissioner Jennifer Bronzini said answers to the fall break question will have to be hand-counted, but the results of the demographic survey -- asking for voters' semester standing, gender and voting history --may not be available at all because of the sheer number of votes cast.

Dan Regan (sophomore-business) said he does not want a fall break because fall classes would start earlier, giving summer session students little time between summer and fall classes.

"There's not enough time to relax, unwind and get away from school a bit," Regan said.

Voters were split on a question that asked whether they favored making one semester of academic probation the maximum punishment for students convicted for the first time of marijuana possession.

Overall, 1,928 students favored amending the policy and 1,870 were opposed. Chuck Thomas, president of the Penn State chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said the vote was a clear victory.

"We actually got more votes than the people who got USG president and vice president," Thomas said.

In other referendums, 2,687 students opposed instituting a student fee to improve Ritenour Health Center services and 1,526 favored it. Most voters, 3,115, said the University does not adequately prepare its teaching assistants, while only 1,075 said it does. And 2,207 students said they are satisfied with their academic advisers' performance, while 1,884 said they are not.