“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.