There is the popular saying that one should beware of getting what one wishes, for one may get what one does not want. On March 20 I was not elected Trustee but I got what I wished for.

My Non-Partisan opponents, Mark, Lee, and Eisenman received, respectively, about 390, 384, and 351 votes. I congratulate them. I received 140 votes. The total of votes cast was 468 in a village of 17,000 residents of whom 11,500 were registered to vote. Putting aside who won or lost, the figures speak aloud the long history in Scarsdale of voters so unmindful of a local election and its consequences that they appear to be walking around our electoral process like unemployed extras on a movie lot.

I ran for election on the claim that from beginning to end the electoral process of the Scarsdale Citizens Non-Partisan Party is, admittedly, secret, and thus contrary to every principle of a democratic society. No argument was advanced against that claim by Mark, Lee, or Eisenman, individually. No answer was made to my claim that Scarsdale’s nonpartisan system is unique among electoral systems in this country and in that part of the world we call the West. As for the system’s keeping secret what occurs before the nominating committee, the only place on earth where that justification could be claimed with a straight face is the fifth floor of a poorly lit asylum late at night.

On March 14, a week before the election, I wrote the following on Scarsdale10583:

“As for the Trustees seeking re-election, Ms Eisenman and Mr Mark, and as for Mr Lee running for the first time, I have no reservation whatsoever with respect to their competence and integrity. What divides us on the ballot is the issue of secrecy that I have raised not against them but against the NonPartisan System’s indefensible love affair with secrecy. As a native born citizen of this country, as a citizen of the Republic of Ireland, and as the son of a Russian mother, I was raised in a culture rebellious against any authority, civil or religious, social or political, claiming any power over me originating in secrecy. My arguments against the Non-Partisan System’s use of secrecy have been plainly laid out and they have been left unanswered. The residents of Scarsdale now have the occasion to vote for or against that secrecy. If they vote for secrecy, that stark fact will be historically recorded. In a sense, my effort will have accomplished something by way of compelling that confession. And that is why I am running. I want to see how my friends and neighbors vote in 2012 on the issue of secrecy in government, whether they move to the left or to the right, for in the absence of supervening reasons of state that justify secrecy, there is no center in which secrecy may hide. In the end, we must decide the issue and let the fat lady sing, so that we can turn out the light and go home.”