To the Editor:
In your Aug. 15 story, "Alumni election suit thrown out of court," Frank Gado '58 responds to the dismissal of the John MacGovern '80 lawsuit against the Association of Alumni with allegations of legal corruption in the New Hampshire court system and claims that the lawsuit was not really about proxy voting, but about alumni enfranchisement. These claims are inflammatory and untrue.
Would it have been fair for the Association to have accepted proxy votes solicited from a small group of alumni, without having given all alumni a publicized opportunity to cast proxy votes? Would this have provided for instantaneous universal enfranchisement, or was it simply intended to influence the outcome of the election?
Gado goes on to suggest that the court's decision was swayed by Dartmouth's political presence in the State. A corrupted court? In its order, the county court found that MacGovern's claims fail as a matter of law "since there is no statute applicable to the Association that authorizes proxy voting, the Association's Constitution does not provide for proxy voting, and the Association has no bylaw authorizing proxy voting ..." Would Gado care to repeat his charge in front of the judge who wrote the opinion?
In addition, Gado's claim that the next election of Association officers has been postponed indefinitely is also false. They will occur in the spring of 2007.
Gado claims that he and MacGovern were "going against a stacked deck." I ask how much of this is just a reaction to things not going their way, despite their maneuvering? However, one has to wonder about the integrity of the deck from which he deals.
