Despite the opposition of some candidates, students running for this year's Young Alumni Trustee position voted against campaigning or candidate statements in the primary election. The result is an election in which seniors must decide their vote based on a candidate's picture and public reputation.
The ban was enacted following a meeting last week in which a majority of candidates voted to eliminate all campaigning from the electoral process.
As a result, all 37 seniors running for the position are prohibited from soliciting votes in any way. They are not permitted to post flyers or send emails about the election to any other students.
The position, which is awarded to one graduating senior each year, guarantees a four-year membership on Princeton's Board of Trustees, along with the same responsibilities as older trustees.
The majority of Young Alumni Trustee contenders also decided to disallow written candidate statements. Seniors running for the position are not authorized to speak about or answer questions regarding their stance on issues they might face while serving on the board.
An email sent to all seniors by Adrienne Rubin '88, associate director for class affairs, contained a list of the candidates' names, an online voting site and another link to a website containing the yearbook photograph of each candidate. No other information was provided.
"When you just leave it to name recognition and popularity, you're not giving people an opportunity to discern which candidates have a vision closer to the student body than others. It becomes a popularity contest," said Carlos Ramos-Mrosovsky '04, a candidate who voted in favor of campaign statements. "There are a lot of candidates who would have a lot to say and we're not being allowed to."
Not all candidates, however, think that published statements would help voters make informed choices.
"Statements use a lot of happy rhetoric but that doesn't leave a lot of substantial stuff. They would have to limit it to only two or three sentences and with that amount of space everybody is going to say the same thing," said one male candidate who requested that his name be withheld.
Without written blurbs to guide them, seniors will have to rely on the reputations of those running, which is exactly what they should be doing, the student said.
"Character is the basic issue and it's not proven through campaigning — it's proven by getting to know people over the last four years," the candidate said. "The system favors those who were more well-known. That might not be a bad thing because if people know who that person is, they might feel more comfortable having that person as their representative."
But even some candidates who are already in the public eye think that published statements are a good idea.
"My main concern was for people who might not have as much name recognition, and the candidate statement might help to publicize their accomplishments and feelings about Princeton," said Eli Goldsmith '04, a candidate who voted in favor of campaign statements.
Those running should be allowed a brief statement about their overall view of Princeton and a list of things they have done in their four years here, he said.
In fact, the top three vote-getters from the election will get precisely this chance in May, when the entire student body votes on them to select the winner.
But campaigning on issues should be prohibited, Goldsmith said. The election should not be about specific opinions or a platform, because candidates cannot possibly know the decisions they will have to make while on the board, he added.
"Something like this shouldn't be about someone who campaigns the hardest or who has the coolest flyers," Goldsmith said. "Ultimately at that point it does become about issues."
But to Ramos-Mrosovsky, it's a simple matter of voters being deprived of their chance to make an informed decision.
"You can't have a democracy when you can't choose because you don't have anything on which to base your choice," he said.
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