The continuing misadventures of ELBO

You can take the player out of Tufts, but you can't take the Tufts out of the player. I must admit, as I continue the search for a job almost a year after graduation, every so often I take a peek at the Daily online. And every so often I see a story on my favorite Tuftstonia topic: the Elections Board!

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." I wonder why no one ever says the opposite of that. Well, I am going to do it. So mark your calendars, for this is going to be known in the annals of history as the date someone finally had the courage to say: "If it's broke, damn it, fix it!" So with that being said, the powers that be need to look around and realize the small group of commandos notoriously known as ELBO, for one reason or the other, has been operating in crisis-malfunction stage for the past fives years (maybe even longer).

History is not on side of any naysayers out there who think that ELBO has done a good job in recently conducting three presidential nominations to yield a total of three candidates (This seemingly unconstitutional occurrence may be explained by a not so outlandish theory that ELBO simply got confused and referred to the newly proposed Constitution. How did I know that? I read it. Remember, I am unemployed.) And I think the only way to fix the problem is by analyzing the historical record:

The Ballot Stuffing Incident Part I. During the Harris and "other guy" (I can't remember his name) presidential election of 1999, ELBO had contracted an unnamed fraternity (I can't say who because they supply my, uh, cheap magazine subscriptions) to operate the ballot boxes. So what happened? More stuffing than a turkey!!! The improprieties were so bad that an entire new election had to be ordered, which meant that Harris and "other guy" had to run all over again.

The ELBO Doesn't Want to Do It Incident. During the Harris administration's (the "other guy" lost) in-house elections, ELBO, for some reason, decided that they didn't have to do their constitutionally-mandated job of conducting the in-house election. That meant Harris did it by himself, and of course, a few days later sensible people made ELBO do the election the right way.

The ELBO Secret Agent Scandal. During the Moon and Poe presidential election of 2000, an ELBO member was accused of chalking for one of the candidates (something I hear happened during the current election). A complaint was made and that ELBO member was grudgingly kicked off.

The Ballot Stuffing Incident Part II. During the Greenberg and Shelton election of 2001, ELBO had contracted a group of individuals (with a striking similarity to the entire group of individuals comprising the Coalition) to operate the ballot boxes. This time around, numerous allegations arose that individuals, as well as ballot operators, were stuffing ballots in support of the Culture Rep Amendment. I'm not sure how this one really played out. I just know people were mad.

The ELBO Missing in Action Incident. Not even Chuck Norris could have saved this ELBO. During the freshman elections of 2001, ELBO had "contracted" with an online company to conduct freshman elections. However, a day before the election, ELBO told various student government folks that the "deal" for the online elections might have been made in la-la land. When Election Day came around, ELBO members left the campus and were nowhere to be found. Consequently, no freshmen were elected. Under public pressure, ELBO impeached one of its members and then most of the remaining remembers voluntarily resigned. Why they impeached one of their members first, don't ask me.

The "What is the Constitution Good For?" Incident. During this year's election, it seems ELBO has taken the approach of doing whatever it wants, including campaigning for one the candidates. Even more stunning is the fact that ELBO has defied Tufts Community Union Judiciary (TCUJ) recommendations for election timelines. The TCUJ recommended having the third nomination meeting on Wednesday and the election on Monday. Defying all reason and logic, ELBO opted to have the nomination meeting on a Tuesday and the presidential election on Thursday. They must have got confused again. Who know what will happen next? ELBO might decide to join in this year's election and run for president! Not too surprising considering one ELBO member is helping out one of the candidates this time around.

Conclusion. In all seriousness, there needs to be a major initiative to clean up ELBO. The incidents I listed are but only a small slice of the trials and tribulations I have witnessed. I would challenge the TCU to come up with a better system. And besides, if the powers that be decide it might be a good idea to hire someone from the outside to conduct the entire election process -- I know one guy who would be interested in having a job.

Ben Nadel is a graduate of the Tufts School of Engineering, Class of 2002.