The Dartmouth Association of Alumni executive committee voted to shorten the campaigning period for Board of Trustees and Association elections on Wednesday, moving forward with the recommendations of an Association committee tasked with exploring election reform. Although the committee was originally formed to pursue campaign finance reform, it found that such reform is politically untenable at this time.
The executive committee approved the report's recommendation to shorten the election period from six to four weeks. The change will become effective on Friday.
"The consensus among alumni that [the election reform study committee] spoke to in our committee's work was that six weeks was too long for a variety of reasons including the expense and attention span of alumni," Association President John Mathias '69, a member of the election reform study committee, said in an interview with The Dartmouth. "The reduction to four weeks was welcomed."
The procedural change comes after a series of elections that have been increasingly contentious and expensive. In the most recent race for an alumni-elected seat on the Board of Trustees, top-tier candidates spent more than $100,000 on their campaigns.
Frank Gado '58, a former member of the Association executive committee who supported the organization's 2007 lawsuit against the College, said that shortening the campaign period will negatively affect petition candidates.
"The group within the alumni that is seeking to challenge the establishment needs to get its message out," Gado said. "How can it get its message out [in four weeks]?"
Petition candidates have been unable to disprove slanderous statements made against them in previous campaigns, Gado said, though he added that elections must have some time limit.
Board candidates will also be allowed to distribute more comprehensive personal statements "within reasonable limits" through a College-sponsored web site and initial ballot mailings, the Association executive committee decided on Wednesday.
Previously, campaign guidelines limited personal statements to a maximum of 250 words.
The balloting committee, established by the Association executive committee each year prior to elections, will determine the new word limit, Mathias said.
The two changes to campaign procedures are intended to reduce spending by Association and Board candidates, David Spalding '76, Association secretary-treasurer and the College's vice president for alumni relations, said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
"Yes, we believe that with a shorter election period and with the College providing more space for people to express their views, there will be less of a need for money in the elections," Spalding said.
The executive committee also approved four "guiding principles" that were included in the election reform study committee's original report, although the principles will not directly affect campaign rules.
The report stated that there was a consensus among politically active alumni that the cost of running a legitimate campaign was becoming too expensive, although there was no consensus as to what, if anything, should be done about campaign finance procedures.
The fourth guiding principle from the report, which stated that "petition candidates should never be disadvantaged by any restrictive election guidelines or rules promulgated by the [Association executive committee]," was changed to say that "no candidate should be ever be disadvantaged" by election guidelines, Mathias said.
The other guiding principles that alumni should be given sufficient information about all candidates, that candidates should be allowed to share their opinions "without editorial review" and that elections should not be affected by the amount of money spent candidates were accepted without change by the committee.
Executive committee members said they are confident the changes will not cause controversy in this year's elections.
"Since there was a general consensus here, we made enough changes that both sides are happy with, I don't think it will be a political issue in the upcoming elections," Spalding said.
