The silent election

In the online polls open through Thursday, seniors can rank their preferences among the 30 YAT candidates in the Class of 2009 based on these details and little else. The three candidates with the highest vote totals will then proceed to the general election, slated to begin on April 23.

The YAT position, created in 1969 by former University president Robert Goheen ’40, enables recent graduates to serve a four-year term on the University Board of Trustees. Candidates are strictly forbidden to campaign or solicit votes in any fashion, but many students and alumni said that as a result, voters do not have enough information to make informed decisions and end up voting for already well-known student government leaders by default.

In the absence of any campaign materials, the YAT election website provides a photo and brief biographical sketch of each candidate. Sketches like Thomas’ may include basic information like hometowns, majors, residential colleges and upperclass dining affiliations as well as limited personal details like their favorite classes, 60 characters on their most time-consuming extracurricular activities and 75 words on their “most meaningful Princeton experience[s].” The inclusion of these biographical details is a recent provision made after the 2006 YAT elections, when students involved called for more information to be provided about the candidates.

Most students, however, seemed unconvinced that the additional details provide sufficient information to render the YAT elections more than a test of name recognition, and several said they doubted whether students would actually take the time to read the biographies.

“I would imagine that most students voting will read at least a few of them, and that very few students will read all 30 of them,” YAT candidate Jeremy ’09 said in an e-mail. All current YAT candidates interviewed spoke on condition of anonymity since they did not want their names associated with open criticisms of the Alumni Association.

Patrick Benitez ’09 said he would “definitely not” read all 30 biographies before voting, adding, “I won’t read any of them, actually.” Benitez, who estimated he knows between one-third and one-half of this year’s candidates, said he would vote based on who he felt would best represent him. “If someone hasn’t met me in three-and-a-half years, then we don’t have anything in common,” he explained. “Princeton is not that big.”

Candidate Tom ’09 said he thought that voters who do read the candidates’ responses might end up voting based on the interest groups emphasized in the bios. “You’re having people judge … based on eating club associations,” he explained. “Like, ‘Oh, that person looks fun because they were in [Tiger Inn].’ ” The biographical information “encourage[s] the type of voting behavior that the Alumni [Association] is trying to avoid,” Tom said.

“Especially when there’s a year like ours where there’s 30 people running for the position, I think people need more than three bullet points and a name,” Tom explained.

Under the current guidelines, YAT candidates are not allowed to solicit votes through any medium, including posters, e-mails, blog postings and door-to-door interactions, nor are they allowed to permit friends to campaign for them. They are also prohibited from taking a position on any issue that might come before the board during the YAT’s tenure on it.

There are two reasons for these restrictions, said Andrew Gossen ’93, senior associate director for administration in the Alumni Association, which oversees the YAT election. The first is to prevent candidates from assuming the YAT role having already “staked out particular positions on issues … or [becoming] beholden to a particular constituency,” he explained in an e-mail.

“One of the most important attributes of an effective trustee is the ability to approach complex issues and evidence in an open-minded and dispassionate way,” Gossen said.

The second reason for the rule is to ease the burden on second-semester seniors who are busy with their independent work, he said. Because candidates only need to have their initial petitions signed by 55 people and do not have to engage in a full-fledged campaign, candidates with later thesis deadlines or less time-consuming independent work do not have an unfair advantage, Gossen explained.

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Forcing candidates to commit more time to running for the position might actually be beneficial to the overall electorate, said Ira Leeds ’06, a former YAT candidate who started an initiative called “Princeton Matters,” which lobbied the Alumni Association to allow campaigning leading up to the YAT election.

“If running for the YAT is too time-consuming for a candidate, how can they possibly expect themselves to be able to commit to the time commitments of actually holding the position?” Leeds said.

“In its current form it really does come down to a popularity contest,” he added. Leeds, whose push for a more “open dialogue” and a “well-informed electorate” generated significant campus publicity, did not make it past the primary election.

Candidate Laura ’09 echoed Leeds’ desire for more dialogue in the elections process, adding that she thinks the information currently included in the biographies is irrelevant to the YAT position. “I don’t think it is [the best-case scenario],” she said. “I think it would really be better to have an open forum where people could talk and get to know the candidates.”

Laura added that the design of the voting website might deter students from reading the biographies at all. “There are two separate [websites]: one for voting and one for bios. That’s definitely going to increase the possibility that people will just vote on name recognition.”

Laura described the voting website as “confusing” and “a little weird.” On the site, students may rank each candidate in order of their preference, from first to 30th. Voters who wish to alter their choices before submitting their ballots, however, must shift as many as 29 of their other rankings.

Tom said he was also in favor of providing more information than just the website biographies about the candidates. “The ideal election process,” he said, would enable the candidates to convey to voters “why they want to serve as a young alumni trustee, what the particular challenges are that the University will face in the next four years and why they are qualified to serve in that capacity.”

Others students, though, said they were not sure that campaigning would improve the process.

“If you’re an unqualified candidate, it’s a lot easier to put on a good front in a crafted medium or brief interaction than it would be over the course of four years, and I think the latter should be the true test of who ought to be serving Princeton in this capacity,” Jeremy said, adding that he thought live debates or open forums would probably be sparsely attended.

“There are plenty of people in every class who are well-known and well-respected, and these people by and large probably make the best candidates for trustee,” Jeremy added. “I think the process is well-geared towards identifying them as it stands.”

In particular, students said, the elections process seems to favor people who have played prominent roles in student government during their time at Princeton.

In the past five years, 13 of the 15 candidates who made it to the general election have been involved in student government. In those years, two of those ultimately elected YAT were class or USG presidents.

“If you’ve been a senior class president or a USG president, you have a de facto advantage by virtue of your name being out there for the last however many years,” Tom explained. “I don’t think that people voting on whose name they remember means they are voting for the person who’d serve them best as a trustee.”

Though some students and alumni said they are dissatisfied with the disproportionate number of student government leaders who ultimately assume the YAT role, others said they do not think this advantage is particularly unfair.

“Terming the process a ‘popularity contest’ is misleading and overly negative,” Jeremy said. “The trustee that we select should be well known and well respected. That’s not the same as the pejorative use of ‘popular’ that has entered the debate.”

P.J. Kim ’01, a former USG president who served as a YAT from 2001 to 2005, said that he thought a campaign wouldn’t change the fact that students will vote based on a candidate’s record of service to the University. “Anyone who is in the top three obviously has some name recognition for what they’ve done. It’s not necessarily the person who is the USG president,” he said, noting that Matt Margolin ’05 was the last USG president to be elected. “I don’t think that posters … or going door-to-door, if you haven’t produced a record of service over four years, would produce a better candidate.”

Some students and alumni said they were skeptical that, since campaigns often take on negative tones, allowing them would taint a system that has, thus far, worked well.

“Campaigns themselves can sometimes devolve into popularity contests and can have people doing silly things to get attention,” said Sarah Stein ’97, a former YAT. “This a serious position, and the process is set up to reflect that.”

Leeds, however, said he believes it is possible to conduct a campaigning process that stays true to the nature of the YAT position.

“The University assumes that if campaigning is allowed, it is going to become issue-based campaigning,” he added. “It seems very paternalistic to think that Princeton seniors can’t follow a simple set of rules that prevent issue-based campaigning and at the same time encourage character-based campaigning.”

Jeremy said, though, that he isn’t convinced that allowing campaigning would result in the selection of a better trustee. “A trustee is not a politician, and I don’t believe that a student’s suitability for the role can be effectively gauged by any sort of campus campaign. Not a fully open one, or highly moderated one, or anything in-between,” he said.

Another candidate, Heather ’09, called the ban on campaigning “fabulous” and “a very wise decision” on the part of the Alumni Association. If campaigning were allowed, the election would be “about who was a better campaigner, not who was a better candidate,” she said, adding, “I think strength of character should be more important than ability to spam listservs.” She added that she thinks the current system, far from benefiting student government leaders, actually gives a fair chance to students who haven’t run campaigns on campus in the past and who might not feel comfortable doing so.

Jocelyn Hanamirian ’08, who voted in the YAT primary election last year, said the current rules may increase the pool of candidates, noting that, because campaigning is not allowed, students have little to lose by running. “I honestly think they get more candidates without the campaign process because all it takes is a petition,” she said. “People think, ‘Why not? It’s a great opportunity.’ I think if you had to campaign … it would seriously narrow the playing field.”

Grant Gittlin ’08, a former class president who was a YAT finalist in last year’s race, said in an e-mail that, given the outcomes of recent YAT elections, he thinks the process is working well. “Any system that has elected Matt Margolin, James Williamson and Meaghan Petersack is doing something right,” he said.

Leeds, however, said he thought the Alumni Association, by forbidding campaigning, was intentionally trying to hinder candidates who have “strong analytical skill” and take “critical perspectives” because they’re not as likely to accept whatever the rest of the board decides if elected.

“The Board of Trustees has a specific agenda with the Young Alumni Trustee election,” he said. “It’s as if they’re manipulating the process along the way to produce a candidate that is palatable for them.”