In a light-hearted, very innocent way, “Please Vote for Me” uses a third grade classes’ elections for class monitor as a model to touch upon overarching aspects of manipulation in democratic elections. When watching the film, I was struck by how early on, the children were taught to seek somewhat seditious avenues in order to assure that they would instead gain legitimacy. This can be seen when the students have to point out the faults of the other candidates. Similarly, presidential candidates spend an enormous amount of money on advertisements solely meant to degrade one another. Although effective for one’s publicity, these highly expensive ads demonstrate the toxic intersectionality of economic standing and authority in the presidential process. Ultimately, if you have more money you will have the ability to technologically reach more people. This dynamic is also apparent within the movie as Lou Lei is essentially able to buy his followers by having the class go on the monorail. Although that wasn’t the only aspect that went into the childrens’ decision, I am sure that this played a crucial part in the final results, considering he won with an enormous amount of support. In contrast, Xu Xiaofei who lives in a single-parent household does not have the economic abilities to provide such an expensive trip, and comes in last. Cheng Cheng too is also crushed. This truthfully surprised me a lot. It seemed as if he had a good standing with his classmates and he was successful at riling up the class during the debates. He was able to expose Lou Lei’s abusive tendencies and yet he only received around six or eight votes. His loss demonstrates the reluctancy for voters to break away from the norm. Lou Lei had already been class monitor for some time, and regardless of how they were mistreated, the students still voted for him.

While watching the film, I wondered a lot about the authenticity of what we were watching. This reminded me of how James C. Scott questioned the legitimacy of his own results considering people who are analyzed may act a different way than how they might usually act. I doubt that all of it was fabricated but I do think there were some parts that were subconsciously exaggerated for the cameras.

The Evergreen elementary school classroom election documented in “Please Vote For Me” shows us democracy in its most rudimentary form: candidates for a leadership position and a classroom full of voters with an equal say on the election outcome. Despite these basic conditions being met, the election nevertheless strays from the theoretical ideal of democracy.

Firstly, the students are poorly informed about democracy and its practices. At the beginning of the documentary, Xiaofei even asks what it means to vote. In an ideal democracy, the voters are well-informed about both the system and the candidates. Still, the election had the potential to provide a demonstration of what happens when democracy is introduced to an uninitiated group of voters. Unfortunately, the heavy involvement of the candidates’ parents means that their preconceptions of democracy influenced the election.

Additionally, Karl and Schmitter emphasize that truly democratic elections are fair, which the class monitor election was not. This is most evident in the bribery Luo Lei uses to collect votes. Despite seemingly being disliked by much of the class because of his strictness as class monitor and tendency for violence, he wins the election by a large margin because he takes the class on a field trip and hands out gifts at the end of his speech. Luo Lei’s history of violent behavior also likely implicitly threatened the class, who may very well have thought he would react violently to losing. This perceived lack of safety to vote as one pleases, coupled with Luo Lei’s blatant bribery, make the election unfair and thus undemocratic.

Interestingly, however, there are many similarities between the “democracy” on show at Evergreen elementary school and what we see in many supposedly democratic countries all over the world. Does this mean that we can’t consider these elections to be truly democratic? And if we do consider them democratic, does that make Luo Lei’s election democratic as well? Considering the corruption, unequal funding distribution among candidates, and/or even violent threats present in many (if not all) of today’s so-called democracies, can we say that any state has achieved anything near the ideal democracy?

“Please Vote for Me” was definitely an example of democracy, although not in its purest forms. Its key elements – an election, direct voting, multiple candidates – make it qualify as democracy in action. However, it was certainly “tinged” in many ways. For one, the candidates were not chosen by a prior vote, but instead were chosen by the teacher. These students seemed excited about the idea, but may not have volunteered under their own volition. In this way, it was not democracy in its purest form. Additionally, a further critique is that a majority was not required. In many democratic systems with more than two candidates, the winner needs a majority in order to win. For this election to have been more “pure” in terms of democracy, it would have required a majority to win and might have incurred a second vote in order to achieve this.

The election was easily tampered with. This occurs in many true states with real elections, but maybe not with this degree of separation. In this election, the candidates, namely the largest boy whose name escapes me, were able to directly influence their votes through shady tactics. Again, this often occurs in real life, a la Egypt, Russia, etc.

Lastly, as is also the case in many true states, there was no oversight to prevent such shady practices from going on. Our current president’s administration is seeing this dynamic play out in front of them – they potentially acted “shadily” and are being investigated for it. In a “purer system,” the intimidation and manipulation that occurred could have prevented the aforementioned boy from even being considered in the final vote.

My main issue with the film Please Vote for Me, rests in the fact that while the film is set up to be a portrayal of what happens when you give children a chance at democracy and whether or not we can draw parallels to adults in democratic government, the children’s actions within this democratic framework are heavily influenced by their parents. Throughout the film there are countless instances of the parents of our three candidates influencing both their thoughts and their actions. For example, the debate between Luo Lei and Cheng Cheng was so rehearsed with the parents that the viewer essentially could have told you what each candidate was going to say before the debate began, including Luo Lei setting Cheng Cheng up to be a liar, and Cheng Cheng’s use of the term “dictator” to define his opponent. There’s also the issue of Luo Lei attempting to buy his classmates’ votes by bringing them on the train ride and giving out prizes at the end of his final speech—both of which show the influence of his parents more than himself. So, in my opinion, the arguments, tactics, and rhetoric we saw in the film were not an accurate depiction of what would happen if we handed democracy to a group that was unfamiliar with it, since there was unquantifiable influence from parents.

However, I still believe that we can gain some insights about democracy from the film. Things like the intimidation/bullying of Xiaofei, bribery by Luo Lei, and deceit, manipulation, and caustic rhetoric by Cheng Cheng all seem to fit our contemporary expectations of democracy. This is because the parents, whose preconceptions about democracy are influencing their children, see these traits as being characteristic of democracy and necessary in order to win. So, it’s not that this classroom is “democracy in action” so much as it is adult preconceptions about democracy being projected onto these children.

Analyzing the portrayal of democracy in “Please Vote For Me” can be done with respect to either democracy in theory or in practice. As far as the former, on the surface, the third graders’ classroom’s version of democracy follows Dahl’s criteria: the election of officials, the right to vote, the right to run for office, the right to express themselves for all. However, the students are unable to fully achieve democracy due to a lack of appreciation for all the details of the democratic process, or democracy in practice. Specifically, as Schimitter and Karl argue, fairly conducted elections are crucial to democracy, and while there was indeed competition between the three students, bribery plays a role in giving the votes to Luo Lei. Neither were elected officials being held accountable for their actions: the students do not utilize their right to confront Luo Lei’s authoritarian manner. Also, Schmitter and Karl emphasize deliberation between the people as important to the democratic process, and the film doesn’t emphasize the students taking part in this (aside from interactions directly with the nominees who tried to sway them). The lack of these conversations could potentially be due to an apathy on the part of the students, a lack of caring that effectively destroys democracy as it removes the role of the citizens. Perhaps too however, the expectation of these students to practice democracy in their classroom is too great. In their setting, the students face two extremes with respect to social order: discipline outside the classroom and disorder within it. As far as the liberal democracy argument, the students must achieve order in the classroom (not the chaos of bullying one minute and everyone crying the next) before they can establish democracy. And ultimately, without knowing the terms associated with government (ie. vote, dictator, manager), they lack the insight about politics in general.