College Students Rig Class Election

“Ganesh" understands that democracy can be a very dirty practice. When he was a college student in Vermont, he and a few friends once rigged a mock class election.

When I was in college, I took a class on the history of post-colonial India. The class was taught by a young Indian-America woman whom I’ll call Ms. Owen. One of the subjects that Ms. Owen covered was the Indian democratic process, and we spent several weeks learning about the different political parties.

Ms. Owen was very proud that India was the world’s largest democracy and reiterated the fact often. Now, I was a cynical fraternity guy at the time. I drank, chased women, and … well, that was all, really. I didn’t particularly care that India was the world’s largest democracy. I cared about doing as little work as possible to get the highest grade. In class, I would sit in the back of the room, often hung-over, with one of my fraternity brothers, doodle in my notebook, and fantasize about boning one of the underclassmen in the front row.

Ms. Owen thought that the best way to educate the class on the Indian election process would be to stage a class election that mimicked Indian elections for Prime Minister. The students were divided into five groups that represented the five major political parties in India at the time.

Ms. Owen gave us three weeks to campaign and told us that anyone on campus could vote in the election. My party was the Janata Party. It consisted of me, my fraternity brother, a couple of guys in another fraternity, and one or two other non-descript students. I honestly can’t tell you what we stood for, but I can tell you we were determined to win the election.

Like the other parties, we made posters and buttons, and harangued classmates around campus. There was no underlying ideology. When we saw a classmate around town, we simply told them, “Vote Janata.”

In the weeks leading up to the election, we may or may not have intimidated voters. We may have paid off a classmate or two with free beer or weed. We may have gone around at night tearing down the oppositions’ posters. I can’t … quite … recall.

Ms. Owen was a tad naïve. She believed that the masses – in this case, her class – were capable of self-government. But, thanks to my party, we weren’t. On the day of the election, she made the mistake of entrusting the Janata party to staff two of the four election booths.

As the voting got underway, classmates and friends of classmates showed up to vote in our little election. When the early returns came in, it was clear that a backlash was under way. Our petty intimidation and beer-for-votes scheme had soured voters. The Janata party was getting trounced.

Luckily for us, though, the election ballots were simple photocopies on blue paper. They were easily replicated. And replicate we did. One of us – I can’t recall if it was I – dashed off to the school book store, bought a ream of blue copy paper, and made three hundred copies of the ballot.

Our operative then marked up the ballots, voting 300 times for the Janata Party, and slipped back into the class. When voting officials weren’t looking, the operative slipped the wad of ballots into the ballot box.

After the election had finished, Ms. Owen stood at a podium and hand counted the ballots, reading the running tally out loud. What seemed like certain defeat for the heavy-handed Janata Party turned into a stunning victory. We won by about 15 votes.

The five of us in the Janata Party didn’t get to govern anything, but we were given “A’s” for the project.