UNDERGRADUATE ELECTIONS

Of all undergraduate activities, the most difficult of regulation appears to be the election system of the various classes. With unvarying regularity, a junior class finds itself in a slough of despond as a result of a more or less unfortunate choice of a prom committee, due to the intricate combinations and counter-combinations which have been made by the candidates and their political lieutenants. The first solution which Palaeopitus offered for the difficulty, the no-deal agreement, was adopted by all the classes in 1912, but this agreement, so stiff and uncompromising in its ban on any sort of preelection agreement, was found to be unenforceable. As a result, the classes have repealed it, under the leadership of 1916.

The principal suggestion for a change in the election system has come from The Dartmouth, which has advocated editorially the establishment jointly of the limited and preferential vote. To quote The Dartmouth:

In choosing a Prom committee, for instance, every man has some one candidate whom he wishes first of all to be elected; another man is his second choice, another his third, and so on. Recognizing this fact, the most efficient method of selecting a Prom committee, would be that which allows a man to express his individual preference on the ballot. Each candidate would thus receive first, second, third, and fourth choices in the example named; these would be weighed in the counting, and the men receiving the majority of choices would be elected. Thus, even though fraternity and non-fraternity deals might flourish, no candidate would be assured of election unless he was the first choice of a majority of the class. An unfit man might make numerous deals, but if he received only four choices, he would find some truth in the adage of the many possible slips between the stein and the lip.

The machinery for a managership election would be even less involved. When a ballot requires voting for eighteen candidates, men must of necessity throw away some of their votes, with the consequent probability of electing several dark horses. The situation would be simplified and made much more efficient if the voter were required simply to cast his vote for the best dozen of the candidates, for instance, —with the election of the eighteen highest men as before. The voter would thus be enabled to vote more intelligently, and the chances of the dark horse would be greatly diminished.

College is really a laboratory in which one learns by experiment a little about future conduct in the world. THE DARTMOUTH offers the two voting methods above as clippings from the world of practical affairs, which might well prove successful in the sphere of college politics. That something should be done to clean up our elections is evident, and THE DARTMOUTH believes that these experiments will help to solve the problem.