“Please Vote for Me” is not representative of a democracy. The election for class monitor is not democratic. Simply because one has the opportunity to vote in a system does not render the system democratic. The teacher selected three candidates for the position; the students, therefore, are essentially forced to choose from predetermined “representatives” of their class. By this logic, however, almost no modern nation is truly a democracy. While behavior of candidates is similar to candidates who run for president or other offices in the United States (insults at debates as the primary form of earning support), children running for a class monitor position cannot be compared to adults campaigning for the highest office in the country. The teacher cannot allow students to vote for whomever they please; in order to guarantee that a somewhat responsible class monitor is chosen, she has to restrict the candidates to three that she knows will be decent at the very least. The students are therefore not voting for a representative. They are voting for a law enforcer who will simply do what the teacher tells them to do. The teacher is the true authoritarian figure in this scenario, not Luo Lei. Students are obligated to choose someone who will cause them grief in one way or another; electing the correct individual does not equate to selecting a representative who will best support their ideas on how the class should be run. I think that Machiavelli would conclude the teacher has done an excellent job of strengthening her control over the class. There’s nothing better than a false sense of democracy to lull a group of eight-year-olds into complacency.