2009 Voting
It seems like the last AoA Executive Committee election just finished, and here it is time to do it all over again. The following is the slate of officers proposed for election this year by the AoA Nominations Committee:
President:
John Mathias Jr. '69
First Vice President:
Veree Hawkins Brown '93
Second Vice President:
Douglas Keare '56, '57Th, '57Tu
Secretary-Treasurer:
David Spalding '76
Executive Committee:
Marian Zischke Baldauf '84
Cheryl Bascomb '82
John Engelman '68
Ronald Harris '71
Kaitlin Jaxheimer '05
Otho Kerr, III '79
Ronald Schram '64
Voting will take place from March 25 through May 6, 2009, and election results will be announced at the association annual meeting in Hanover on Saturday, May 9. For more information about the election visit www.voxthevote.org.
Appearing also on the ballot will be the proposed election reform Amendment to the AoA constitution simplifying and clarifying procedures for Alumni Trustee elections. Click here to view a full copy of the amendment.
One person/one vote head to head elections are the fairest, best understood procedures ever devised. By adopting them in place of the widely misunderstood "approval voting" procedures required by the current constitution, in which voters may cast as many votes as there are candidates running, and in which 3 or more candidates must be nominated in every election, we believe there will be no more arguments about election outcomes based upon contentions of "gaming the system." Furthermore, the pernicious "churn and burn" effect caused by requiring the nomination of two or more fine candidates who are doomed to lose will be eliminated. By requiring the ultimate winner to get a majority of the total votes cast and allowing for a run off election if necessary between the top two vote getters in races involving 3 or more candidates, we also believe the representative authority of the winner will be considerably strengthened.
Better yet, the proposed amendment will address concerns voiced by the Board of Trustees about election reform, and it will give your AoA Executive Committee and Alumni Council leadership a substantial boost in our ongoing discussions with the Board about increasing the number of elected Alumni Trustees. On the other hand, if the amendment fails to get the 2/3 vote required for its adoption, this will be a significant setback for us in this effort.
Your AoA Executive Committee urges you to vote for this important amendment.
John Mathias (for the AoA Executive Committee)
President:
John Mathias Jr. '69
First Vice President:
Veree Hawkins Brown '93
Second Vice President:
Douglas Keare '56, '57Th, '57Tu
Secretary-Treasurer:
David Spalding '76
Executive Committee:
Marian Zischke Baldauf '84
Cheryl Bascomb '82
John Engelman '68
Ronald Harris '71
Kaitlin Jaxheimer '05
Otho Kerr, III '79
Ronald Schram '64
Voting will take place from March 25 through May 6, 2009, and election results will be announced at the association annual meeting in Hanover on Saturday, May 9. For more information about the election visit www.voxthevote.org.
Appearing also on the ballot will be the proposed election reform Amendment to the AoA constitution simplifying and clarifying procedures for Alumni Trustee elections. Click here to view a full copy of the amendment.
One person/one vote head to head elections are the fairest, best understood procedures ever devised. By adopting them in place of the widely misunderstood "approval voting" procedures required by the current constitution, in which voters may cast as many votes as there are candidates running, and in which 3 or more candidates must be nominated in every election, we believe there will be no more arguments about election outcomes based upon contentions of "gaming the system." Furthermore, the pernicious "churn and burn" effect caused by requiring the nomination of two or more fine candidates who are doomed to lose will be eliminated. By requiring the ultimate winner to get a majority of the total votes cast and allowing for a run off election if necessary between the top two vote getters in races involving 3 or more candidates, we also believe the representative authority of the winner will be considerably strengthened.
Better yet, the proposed amendment will address concerns voiced by the Board of Trustees about election reform, and it will give your AoA Executive Committee and Alumni Council leadership a substantial boost in our ongoing discussions with the Board about increasing the number of elected Alumni Trustees. On the other hand, if the amendment fails to get the 2/3 vote required for its adoption, this will be a significant setback for us in this effort.
Your AoA Executive Committee urges you to vote for this important amendment.
John Mathias (for the AoA Executive Committee)
posted by John Mathias at
1/09/2009 05:25:00 PM
7 Comments:
It looks like we should go to two-year terms and save the money in these tough times.
By
DartBored, at 1/09/2009 9:00 PM
DartBored: I agree, not only to save money in tough times, but to permit a pro-active leadership of an independent Association time to get things accomplished.
Unity Slate: How about a ”symbolic show”?
By
Tim Dreisbach '71, at 1/15/2009 10:37 AM
I am sorry not to see ranked-choice voting for elections. Not only would it save runoff costs and be more time efficient, it would be less likely to lead to the sort of gaming we see in the national elections.
By
sara, at 4/08/2009 11:28 PM
Sara:
Why do you say ranked choice leads to less gaming than one vote only?
Those pushing the current amendment to end approval voting say it is too confusing and also games the system. Yet approval voting is actually a simplified ranked voting system, with voters ranking people in two categories... all acceptable versus all not acceptable.
They also say approval voting is too complex for Dartmouth alumni to understand. Jeez. If so, alumni could never handle the concept of ranked choices.
The logic for creating the possibility for runoff elections is beyond me. Those behind this election "reform" do not want multi-candidate elections anyway. The claim is that the outcome is less clear. My guess from past experience is that with more candidates it is harder to contain and control election messages that make people uncomfortable. A diversity of thought in a contested election implies divided opinion and divisiveness is always a bad thing. Hence the "unity" party.
Watch the upcoming election "reform" closely.
And when did campaign reform become the top priority anyway. We had previously been promised that the first priority after passing the election change amendment was to sit with the Board and discuss the number of alumni trustees... i.e. to address concerns of the majority of alumni for whom parity is important. Apparently that campaign promise that takes second seat to the "reform" agenda now set as the top priority. Too bad it is too late for a different slate.
By
Tim Dreisbach '71, at 4/09/2009 7:35 AM
Relating to Tim's query to Sara, approval voting is simple to describe, but creates complex campaign dynamics where insincere voters have a clear route to gain an edge over sincere voters by "bullet voting" for only one person.
Ranked choice voting/instant runoff voting is used for Dartmouth's student body president elections and many other elections (see www.instantrunoff.com). Insincere voters get no edge over sincere voters, as demonstrated in its use of thousands of highly competitive elections.
By
Robert, at 4/25/2009 3:19 PM
Robert: Thanks for the note and keeping this thread reasoned.
I have heard the argument about bullet voting before, but do not understand. It seems insincere voters who only vote for a single candidate gain no advantage; indeed the reason their candidate wins is because their opponents also voted for a single candidate when they should have voted for several in opposition. Ranked voting is a variation to approval in that it makes it clear that people should consider multiple votes.
My bigger concern is the attempt to manage head-to-head elections and really discourage multiple candidates in the first place. This is part of a subtle effort to reduce real choice because choice among truly different alternatives will by nature be divided/divisive and when the stakes are large, controversial. I think that such elections, with high voter turnout, are much better than less choice and electorate apathy as happens under the "unity approach".
Dartmouth the institution is strong enough to survive any short-term emotional upset of contested elections and is better off long-term for having open and even heated debate. "Sharp elbows" as Jim Wright likes to say. Those who disagree seem to me insecure about themselves, their opinions, or their College.
Tim D.
By
Tim Dreisbach '71, at 4/30/2009 7:57 AM
Approval voting is known by election science experts to be far more resistant to strategic voting than ranked methods, such as Instant Runoff Voting. You can see that by looking at these Bayesian regret calculations, by a Princeton math Ph.D. named Warren D. Smith:
http://scorevoting.net/UniqBest.html
http://scorevoting.net/StratHonMix.html
Robert brought up the concept of "bullet voting". Well, bullet voting isn't always the strategically optimal move. Say your favorite candidate in 2000 was Ralph Nader. Then just voting for Nader would have been strategically sub-optimal. A tactical voter would have wanted to vote for his favorite of the two front-runners, plus anyone he liked more. So if you liked Nader over Gore over Bush, then you would have wanted to vote for Nader and Gore.
And ranked methods, such as IRV, are also susceptible to strategic manipulation - and much more harmed by it. As you can see in the above Bayesian regret figures, IRV is so much poorer than approval voting, that approval voting is about as good with 100% sincere voters as IRV is with 100% honest voters. Throw in some realism there (there will be some sincere approval voters, and there will be some strategic IRV voters), and approval voting handily surpasses IRV.
Those who would promote ranked systems in favor of approval voting, out of consideration for strategic behavior, are naive about the mathematics of voting theory.
By
broken ladder, at 5/19/2009 5:14 PM
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