to accommodate electors who lived further away, the Hall of Fame accepted ballots until October 15. Each elector obtained ballots from the Hall of Fame's curator, upon which they could vote for up to seven individuals. The electors could only vote on nominations from the public or nominees from previous years. An elector could then mark a nominee as being either eligible, ineligible, or out of that elector's field of expertise. Electors included "the most respected writers, historians, and educators of their day, along with scores of congressmen, a dozen Supreme Court justices, and six Presidents". The Hall of Fame had at least one elector from every U.S. state. To avoid a conflict of interest, NYU officials were barred from serving on the board of electors. Each elector was picked by NYU's faculty senate; if an elector were to die or resign, the NYU senate would vote to select new electors. The board of electors originally selected candidates by a simple majority vote, although three-fifths of electors had to agree on nominations from 1925 to 1940. After the board of electors voted in favor of a nominee, a majority of NYU's senate (including its "honorary members") had to approve the board of electors' choice. The NYU senate could theoretically veto any selection, although this never happened during the hall's history. For the 1976 election, the majority vote was replaced with a point system. During that election, candidates were nominated to one of three categories (arts/humanities, sciences, and government/business/labor), and the highest-ranking candidate in each category was elected. Although no elections have taken place since then, the rules were changed in 1979 so that art, business and labor, government, humanities, and science were all split into their own categories. The following table summarizes each election: Classification of honorees The first 50 names were supposed to represent "a majority" of people from 15 classes: authors and editors business men inventors missionaries and explorers philanthropists and reformers clergymen and theologians scientists engineers and architects lawyers and judges musicians, painters, and sculptors physicians and surgeons politicians and statesmen soldiers and sailors teachers distinguished men and women outside of these classes These classifications have not been followed because the hall's electors only selected 29 people in the first election. Furthermore, the requirement could not be enforced after the 1900 election. In practice, most of the honorees in 1900 were politicians and statesmen. More than three