The return of the popularity contest election

This exact column ran on April 26, 2005 to publicize and protest the Young Alumni Trustee Election. I'm running it again because nothing has changed.

When I was in eighth grade, I voted in my first election. A few of my peers stood before us and then we voted. It was exciting at first, but it quickly turned anticlimactic when everyone realized that the results were predetermined. The eighth grade class presidents were simply the most popular kids who ran. Not to knock the job that either of the co-presidents actually did, but that day, I participated in my first popularity contest election. "Napoleon Dynamite" excepted, popularity contest elections seem to be a part of growing up American. Those were our formative years, when we experienced democracy firsthand and felt empowered to "talk truth to power" — only to realize that, most of the time, administrators could not care less what students had to say.

Most of us, however, thought that we left popularity contest elections behind when we graduated from high school. Getting to Princeton freshman year and participating in my first round of USG elections, I could not help but be amazed by how different the process was. Candidates actually had platforms that they ran on — not that most of what's on them is accomplished anyway, but they at least tried harder to have a coherent plan — and the endorsement process is a technological tour de force that is responsible for thousands of clogged inboxes. Some candidates win because they bring issues to the table that are not being discussed, while others succeed because current office holders have done little measurable good for their constituency.

Have we really gotten past the popularity contest, though? As an upperclassman, I received an email from Dean Dunne, announcing the Young Alumni Trustee election. For those not in the know, the Young Alumni Trustee is elected as a member of the senior class who sits on (and votes with) the Board of Trustees for the year after graduation — not exactly a trivial responsibility. I might even claim that this is the most important vote that any upperclassman can cast.

If you don't think that you have seen much campaigning for the election, you're right. Campaigning is strictly prohibited, and any candidate that engages in it will be disqualified. Before voting electronically (to prevent problems with dimples and chads), one can read biographies of each of the finalists. It's a fascinating read. I had no idea that Azalea Kim speaks Mandarin, Matt Margolin speaks Spanish and Toni Seaberry speaks French. (Pardon my ignorance, but are trustee meetings conducted in any of those languages?)

Other juicy bits of important information concern where each candidate went to high school, what they wrote their thesis on and what they've done over the summers. Absent from the 1,500 words on the candidates was any information on anything related to the office they were seeking. I have no idea why any candidate wants the job or why any thinks that he or she is more qualified than the others. Perhaps more bothersome, however, is the fact that I, as a voter, have no earthly idea where each candidate stands on issues that are important to the entire undergraduate community. Could this be an oversight? To check, I emailed each candidate, asking them their opinion on the presence of ROTC on campus. This was a hot-button issue, and one that can conceivably come up when the Trusteees get together. Each sent a similar response (this one from Matt Margolin): "Unfortunately I cannot discuss this issue with you because of the election's guidelines ... If you have any questions about these seemingly strange guidelines, feel free to email Ms. Adrienne Rubin. She's quite helpful."

So I did. In a very nice email, Ms. Rubin told me that campaigning is illegal because, "The voters are electing the person they trust most to make these decisions."

Inherent in any successful democratic process is the ability of a voter to make educated decisions about their candidates. Here, voters are prevented from finding out what each candidate wants to prioritize, how they plan to interact with the trustees and how they personally feel about important issues. Given that the process is structured to prevent me from doing so, I'm going to have to pick the old fashioned way — and turn this election into my first popularity contest since high school. Matthew Gold is a politics major from New York, New York. He can be reached at mggold@princeton.edu. Recent commentary can be found at Matthew's Blog: http://mattggold.blogspot.com.