To the Editor:
I played tennis for a while in middle school, and one of the least enjoyable parts of the game was the constant arguing with the people in my classes about whether or not the ball was in. Mind you, 12-year-olds can get into pretty heated debates about this topic. “Did the ball touch the white line?” “Johnny’s just saying it was out because he wants the point.” “I know it was in; I saw it from all the way over here on the other side of the court!” “Why are you still arguing with me? Well, if you’re going to argue, then let’s play the point again; I’ll get the points this time for sure!”
Elections are, to summarize rather drastically, about the person with the most votes winning. The results of the original election clearly indicate that Carlos Perea ’07 won by four votes. Those numbers don’t change randomly with the weather or the river level. We are all competent mathematicians around here—provided we are sober, of course. I believe that if each and every (sober) RPI student counted the votes by hand, we would all find that Carlos Perea undeniably won the election by four votes. So why is Zack Freeman ’07 the new Grand Marshal?
It would be interesting to determine exactly who pointed out the missing ballots and insisted on a runoff. Was it someone who wanted to ensure fairness for the sake of fairness? In that case, the Rules and Elections Committee already has good reason to believe that five of the ballots didn’t even exist due to a printing error. Problem solved. Or was it that kid and his friends way over on the other end of the court, getting all bent out of shape because he hit the ball out of the court and wants another chance?
If we start bending the rules at our leisure, then we might as well just throw out the rules altogether. I’m sure there are plenty of people around who wouldn’t mind the opportunities this would present. But is that really the kind of campus we want to be a part of, and the kind of country we want to live in? Elections are a much more serious issue than a game of adolescent tennis. Our election system has now proven to be no better than some farcical aquatic ceremony that made Arthur the king of the Britons. I think we can all agree that strange women lying in ponds and distributing swords are no basis for electing a Grand Marshal.
Sophia Libby Stehr
CIVL ’09
