Avoiding self-inflicted injuries

Though there are many tasks facing the USG, none are as fundamental to its legitimacy as its ability to conduct fair, transparent elections. It is disheartening that the voting rules for spring USG elections were once again changed this year without any apparent effort to inform the student community. Even members of the USG did not know of the change until they attempted to vote, and no USG member at this week's meeting could adequately explain how the voting system worked. It is essential that all future changes to the election system be announced to candidates, voters and USG members ahead of time so that they can plan accordingly. Furthermore, the USG should revise its voting system to ensure that enough candidates are elected to fill all open positions.

The lack of prior notification about the voting procedure and the confusion within the USG seem to suggest a lack of internal communication, which calls into question how effective our government can be. Furthermore, because this incident comes just days after a similarly embarrassing incident in which a portion of the USG constitution could not be found, it is imperative that the USG restore student confidence by ensuring that basic government functions are efficiently and transparently executed.

The current voting procedure, which allows voters to rank up to two candidates for U-Council, is flawed because it has the potential to yield fewer U-Councilors than there are U-Council seats. The USG uses a single transferable voting (STV) mechanism. Under the system, the threshold of votes necessary for a candidate to be elected is derived using a formula that takes into account the total number of voters and the total number of seats available. When candidates reach the threshold, their excess votes are distributed to voters' second choices proportionally. If not enough candidates reach the threshold, the candidate with the lowest number of first-choice votes is eliminated and his/her votes are redistributed to voters' second choices. This process is repeated until candidates reach the threshold or are eliminated. Any STV system that does not allow for at least as many candidates to be ranked as there are seats can yield insufficient numbers of elected officials because it is possible that too few candidates will attain the requisite number of votes necessary to be elected.

It is encouraging to see that the USG is considering steps to amend its voting process. The USG can make its STV system sounder by allowing students to rank as many candidates as they would like. The USG should not, however, require that students rank all candidates because students may put their favorite candidates at the top of their list, but then skew the rest of the vote by simply ordering the remaining candidates in the order they appear on the ballot. If the order in which candidates appear on the ballot is randomized for each voter, this skew may be minimized.

The USG must quickly address the many missteps it has recently made and restore public confidence in its competence. Hopefully then the well meaning members of the USG will be able to return their attention to positively impacting the lives of Princeton students.