Dartblog

The elegantly named ERSC (Election Reform Study Committee) has submitted its report on guidelines for the spring’s alumni trustee elections — a subject to which we have turned here and here.

Its basic conclusions:

(A) Alumni should be given sufficient information about each candidate and his/her positions to enable informed voting decisions.

(B) To the fullest reasonable extent, candidates should be able to communicate their qualifications and positions freely without editorial review.

C) Elections should not be influenced by the amount of money spent campaigning, and no candidate should have to raise or spend any substantial amount of money campaigning to have a realistic chance of winning.

(D) Petition candidates should never be disadvantaged by any restrictive election guidelines or rules promulgated by the AoA EC.

Its only recommendations:

(1) The election period should be shortened from six weeks to four weeks; and

(2) In the initial ballot mailing to all alumni and on a College sponsored website, consideration should be given to allowing more expansive personal statements from trustee candidates within reasonable limits.

The Committee felt that there was no consensus on revising current election procedures, but it did not define what it meant by that term. (I don’t believe that there is unanimous agreement among all Americans that the Star Spangled Banner should be played on July 4th, though I think that there is now a consensus on the issue. In my more doctrinaire time as a student, classes were held on July 4th.)

Of course, there exists no perfect solution that would ensure equal campaigning among the candidates. After all, the Alumni Council’s candidate is announced in December with the full support of the College media and the AC itself. But after that, any petitioner is free to do a mass mailing to gather signatures, a process that rules cannot fairly limit for fear of keeping the petitioner from gathering the necessary signatures. Each candidate gains an asymmetrical advantage in this way.

All that said, the conclusions are reasonable and the two modest recommendations should be implemented.

Note: Much larger questions remain to be decided. Will the Board of Trustees accept elections that are run according to these virtually unchanged guidelines? Or will the Trustees step in and impose limits themselves? Stay tuned.