Regarding the Dartmouth trustee election
Dartmouth alum John MacGovern writes in answer to questions regarding the irregularities that have plagued the trustee election whose deadline has now been extended to May 6 (references to email attachments in the message have been omitted):
There have been all sorts of election irregularities in the Dartmouth trustee election, extending the election deadline was NOT one of them. I, for one, sent a strongly worded email to John Walters, chairman of the Ballot Committee of the Association of Alumni, asking for an extension till May 6. My primary reason was that paper ballots had gone out two to three weeks late. Now that’s a big deal in a seven week election period. He relented.Let me list some of the irregularities.
1) Voting period began on March 7 (and was to end at 5pm on April 22). March 7 was the day one could vote electronically. However, paper ballots weren’t mailed out till two to three weeks later and the voting period was nearly half over. (You and I know that, as a general rule, members of older more conservative classes would not have or be nimble with email and would require instead paper ballots to vote.)
2) On March 10, I received two candidate emails from the Association of Alumni. One was from Ric Lewis, backed by the administration; the other was from Todd Zywicki, a petition candidate. Many alumni received the Ric Lewis email and not Zywicki’s. This was called a “glitch” by Patsy Fisher-Harris and John Walters. Isn’t that what Nixon’s secretary said when asked about the gap in the White House tapes? “There was a glitch”.
3) I sent a letter to 2200 alumni asking them to let me know if they had NOT received either a paper ballot or the election email allowing them to vote electronically. I received dozens of responses. Some said though they had constantly received fundraising letters from the College they received no paper ballot.
4) The Ballot Committee met today and voted not to answer some basic, public information kind of questions about the third party vendor being used to do the mailings and validate and tabulate the votes.
5) The candidates are forbidden from “campaigning.” However, [Dartmouth President] Jim Wright is campaigning, the administration(deans, provost) is campaigning, and members of the faculty are campaigning. Former trustees, former presidents of the Council, a current member of the executive committee of the Association of Alumni(the court of final appeal in this election), the whole array of former party bosses, all are campaigning through Alumni for a Strong Dartmouth. For three months the pictures and bios of the administration backed candidates were up on the official Dartmouth College website. Also, for three months, on the same website there was an official ‘steaming video’ endorsement of these same candidates by the current president of the Alumni Council. No wonder they have this rule against “campaigning”. It is meant to make it impossible for petition candidates to win.
Only there is a small problem, it isn’t working. TJ Rodgers won last year, in spite of these restrictions and with, a whopping, 55% of the vote in a four-way race.
And, again this year, I am convinced that, if the votes are tabulated accurately, Peter Robinson and Todd Zywicki will win.
Best,
John MacGovern, President
Hanover Institute
