The small cloistered world of Harvard elections has been thrown into a sense of disarray. Campaigns have been fined, candidates have been chastised. The cause of this chaos? “Renegade posters.” You see, the rather sanctimonious and self-important “Election Commission” has very specific guidelines that limit the size, quantity and location of the Undergraduate Council presidential and vice-presidential candidate posters. Violations of these rules draw financial penalties for the candidates they endorse, and although the fines are not particularly high they can be seriously damaging to campaigns that don’t have a lot of money to begin with.
However in the spirit of being over-serious—in a quintessentially Harvard way—Dartboard thinks it necessary to point out that the Commission is missing an easy target: the promises and vows made by the candidates in their platforms.
Several of the council campaigns have made lengthy lists of promised “to do’s” should they be elected. By Dartboard’s count Matt Glazer and Clay Capp alone have made over 50 different promises on their website. That is a lot of material that is not currently being regulated by the Election Commission.
Think of it, our brave council companions could ensure that no pledge is too ambitious, too lofty, too divisive or simply impossible to achieve. Council campaigns would feel less and less like oversized high school elections and more like the legitimate campaigns for meaningful elected office that they really are!
Considering that the Election Commission essentially functions only for one week out of the year, Dartboard is more than confident that they will expand their power somewhere down the road. Dartboard would certainly feel a lot safer if there were not so many unauthorized and unregulated promises being tossed about during election season.
—MARK A. ADOMANIS
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Big Brother Comes to Campus
