Please don't give this sham the credibility of your vote.

Every free man in a democratic society should be outraged at such a ballot.

Don't get me wrong. I love Nate Fick and what he stands for. But unchallenged candidates (you can't even write in someone's name here) are not only insults to the intelligence and discerning nature of Dartmouth graduates, they actively undermine democratic values everywhere. The alumni sold their soul in trading a competing voice for purely-cosmetic media-friendly unity. Hasn't the Gospel of Public Relations been disproven enough? Or does anyone truly believe that nothing at Dartmouth is worth a true contest of vision?

How dare the AoA even consider wasting valuable Dartmouth money with a ballot more worthy of Hussein's Iraq or Al-Assad's Syria than an Ivy League college in the freest country on earth.

Nate Fick '99 for Trustee

The Little Green Blog would like to applaud the Dartmouth Alumni Council's decision to nominated Nathaniel Fick '99 as a candidate for Trustee. As a best-selling author, the leader of a DC policy institute, and a former military officer with combat experience, Mr. Fick's perspectives and experiences make him an excellent candidate. But more importantly, this nomination is a refreshing departure from the usual slate of candidates drawn from the financial world and chosen more to be work horses of fund-raising than inspiring leaders of note.

Mr. Fick rose to prominence as the commander of a Marine Corps platoon profiled in a series of prize-winning articles by journalist Evan Wright for Rolling Stone. The articles became the basis of Wright's 2004 book, Generation Kill and the 2008 TV Series on HBO of the same name. In 2005, Mr. Fick published One Bullet Away, a war memoir that was included on Marine Corps reading lists and became the basis for much of his military fame. His book (which I previously reviewed ) reads like a pencil-written journal splattered with blood from the earliest days of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. It lives in the moment, offers a tremendous first-person perspective on war, and opens the eyes of the reader to the everyday life of the modern Marine.

Dartmouth's (latest) meaningless election

The Dartmouth Association of Alumni must really be trying to reach me. They sent me an email, they mailed me a letter, and they sent me another email all to get me to cast my ballot in the 2011 Trustee and AoA Executive Committee election! And the deadline is only a month away!! With all that effort, this election must be pretty important, so I signed in using the codes they sent to view this ballot:

That's right, one vote for every one candidate. No write ins. No democracy. They even made a handy little button you can press to automatically vote for all of the preselected, election-guaranteed 'candidates'.

SCOOP: Replogle will likely win trustee election

Insider sources tell LGB that initial sample-based projections of the paper ballots in the Trustee election have Asch trailing by more than 20 points. Because paper ballots compose a third of overall ballots, Asch would have to pull in a substantial portion of the electronic ballots (more than 55%) in order to prove victorious.

While I have always been a supporter of Joe and the kind of critical eye he could bring to the board, it looks like Replogle (and the unopposed Krondrake) will be the next Trustees. Additionally, in the Association of Alumni election, it looks like the "Dartmouth Undying" slate will edge out the "Dartmouth United" one.

We will post more on the election outcomes as the story develops

UPDATE: Because alumni casting paper ballots are believed to be older and more 'conservative' -- in the Dartmouth politics sense of the word (e.g. favoring parity) -- we believe that Joe Asch would need to lead in this group. The fact that he is down 2-1 in initial projections for paper ballots makes his victory rather difficult.

UPDATE 2: The Dartmouth has picked up our story but does not offer any new information.

BREAKING: Trustee Election

Your humble servant is serving as representative for Joe Asch '79 at the ballot count this morning at the American Inn in Bethesda, MD. (The election is run by an independent contractor, which is why the count is not held in Hanover.)

I am not authorized to release particulars about where the voting stands -- not least because I am not counting the ballots -- but here are some interesting facts:

Turnout: Out of a universe of 67,072 eligible voters, 14,907 alumni voted by electronic ballot (22.2 percent). The estimated paper ballots being counted now is 7,200-8,500. David Spalding '76, director of Alumni Relations, who has graced us with his presence, predicts voter participation to be at its highest level ever for a trustee race.

Stephanie Lewin '88, the nominated trustee candidates' campaign manager, is representing John Replogle at the count. (Your servant has considered asking her to get lunch, but was afraid she might cancel at the last minute.)

No voting irregularities to report as of yet, other than an apparent glitch with voting electronically by iPhone. (No word how large a share of the population the iPhone voters may be.)

UPDATE (12:20): Mort Kondracke '60, an unopposed Association of Alumni candidate for trustee, showed up. He doesn't appear to be too concerned -- I wonder why.

The paper ballot count is winding down. We will begin reviewing -- and if necessary, contesting -- problem ballots after lunch. Ron Harris, the representative of the Association of Alumni balloting committee, has final say over how to count all problem ballots. (Is this a conflict of interest? It merits discussion.)

UPDATE (April 9): The final tally for paper ballots was far below the estimates. 5,999 paper ballots were counted, bringing total participation to 31.16 percent, or about 20,900 votes. It is the highest rate of participation in a trustee election.

This is a developing story.

Sounds like elections in China

The Dartmouth reports that Morton Kondracke ’60 of Newsweek and John Replogle ’88 of Burt's Bees have been nominated to be the Alumni Council candidates for the upcoming trustee elections. As to why only one candidate was chosen for each of the two seats, The Dartmouth reports this:

The Council elected to nominate only one candidate for each open position on the Board for the spring 2010 trustee race in order to better facilitate competition with petition candidates, Tom Daniels '82, chair of the Alumni Council Nominating and Alumni Trustee Search Committee, said in a previous interview with The Dartmouth.

This sounds like China: the leaders choose the unopposed candidates and because there is voting, we call it democracy.

John Mathias ’69, champion of poor, hopeless trustee candidates

In Friday's issue of The D, the anti-trustee-parity party, through the mouthpiece of AoA President John Mathias ’69, once again defended trustee authoritarianism. Here are the more disingenuous arguments he advances:

A. Money spent in trustee/alumni elections should instead be spent on the college.

The escalating cost of elections is cause for “grave concern” in the future, he said. “It’s a huge amount of money to be diverted from other uses, including, but not limited to, money given to Dartmouth,” he said. “If you’re inclined to spend money at all, I would certainly rather direct it to Dartmouth College than to the U.S. Postal Service [to send promotional campaign material] or vendors to make phone calls for you.”

Mathias assumes that the person holding the office is immaterial. If it doesn't matter who wins in an election, why don't we just pick the cheapest candidate and donate the rest of the money to Dartmouth!? In reality, democracy is a method of contest between differing ideological groups, the results of which should have consequences. Mathias's opponents, what is left of the pro-parity faction, do give generously to Dartmouth, but as evidenced through their financing of the petition trustee elections, they are more than willing to shell out a lot more if their donations give them a say in how Dartmouth is run. Much of the administration would rather alumni just write five-figure checks and then shut the fuck up. But to ignore their input will only serve to alienate as we saw with the immediate decrease in alumni giving after Haldeman pulled a troop of unelected trustees out of his ass and packed them onto the board.

B. Money shouldn't have a role in shaping election outcomes.

“Should the next trustee candidate have to spend $50,000 of their own money or $100,000 of their own money to have any chance of winning?” Mathias said

This would make a lot of sense if it wasn't for the fact that the nominated candidates have tremendous advantages in the resources (e.g. mailing lists) given to them by the administration. And it would make a lot of sense if it didn't therefore lead to a vain popularity contest since unknown but committed alumni have no way to break into politics without spending money to get their names out there. And it'd make a lot of sense if it wasn't for the fact that appointed trustees get their positions precisely because they donate tons of money to the school. Actually, scratch that... that point doesn't make any sense.

C. A committee will use polls to see what the alumni want and go from there. Just look at how neutral our questions are!:

“Should candidates in alumni trustee and/or [the Association’s Executive Committee] elections have to raise or spend a substantial amount of money campaigning to have any realistic chance of winning,” the survey asks.

Trustee T.J. Rogers easily sees through this bull shit.

“I think this [questionnaire] is designed to prevent the problem unfairly, and the reaction is going to be the one they’ve rigged the question to produce,” Rodgers said. “That’s the part of this that’s dishonest.”

So thank you Mr. Mathias for standing up for all those poor, hopeless Ivy-League-trustee aspirants who by only some strange coincidence share your political ideology. How selfless.