"What?!" Luna crumpled the newspaper in disgust. She and her sister quickly took flight for Canterlot.

[hr]

"Explain this!" Luna demanded of Twilight Sparkle, whom the sisters had left in charge so they could take a year or two of sabbatical.

"I... I..." Twilight stammered. "I just don't know what went wrong!"

"Start at the beginning," Celestia suggested.

Taking a deep breath, Twilight began the tale.

[hr]

So, I was reading on Prance and this thing called "democracy." It seemed more fair than monarchy, and fair is always better, right? So, I decreed ponies could vote for who they wanted in government positions. Somepony asked, "Even your position?" Well... it seemed only fair, and I thought it'd be easy for me to win.

Pinkie decided to throw a "democracy party" where I could hear ideas and concerns. Filthy Rich heard about this, and decided he'd throw his own. A "Grand Old Party," he said.

At the democratic party, we talked about how to help other ponies. But Dash and others worried about their taxes going to freeloaders, and said we had to be fair about it.

Fluttershy wanted to go further though. She thought we should help the ponies that need the most help, even if it's not completely fair to richer ponies that might pay a bit more. A lot of ponies agreed with her, but our friends took her aside and told her she was confusing ponies and they all needed to back me for now.

Over at the GOP, Filthy was saying a lot of lies about me. He said I was a corrupt "palace insider" and that I'd even been using my own private dragon for official correspondence. He tried to say I was "crooked" because some of the bits I used to rebuild my "personal" library after Tirek came from donations. But the library [i]is[/i] a charity!

Then somehow, AJ and some others got word of other stuff Filthy was saying. He was promising more jobs for the working pony. They liked that idea. Then, when they heard we'd made Fluttershy to step aside, they got mad at our whole party and left for good.

Before I knew it, everypony in both parties seemed mad at the other. It was ugly, but when we voted, I still thought I would win. But I guess not...

[hr]

"So," Celestia said. "More ponies voted for Filthy Rich than you?"

"Oh, no, not at all. I had over a million more votes. But early on, some ponies were worried their issues wouldn't be heard because they lived in rural places. So I said we'd split things up by region to balance that out." Twilight pushed a document across the desk titled "The Electoral College."

Luna skimmed it for a few minutes. "This is the most ridiculous process I've ever seen."

Twilight smashed her face into her hooves. "I know!!" she whined. "I just didn't think it would matter. I mean, how could any pony even consider voting for Filthy Rich? He said donkeys—he called them "jackasses" actually; can you imagine? He said they were murders and rapists and they'd all be deported. He said he wanted to put [i]all[/i] changelings in a national registry, just because a few radicals attacked us in the past. Worse, at a party where he was literally promising to end wealth-based privilege, he..." Twilight's voice cracked in a combination of anger and sadness. "He [i]bragged[/i] about how being so wealthy let him do [i]horrible[/i] things to mares without their consent!" Twilight sighed. "But I guess lies trump everything."

After a moment of silence, Celestia spoke. "Every few hundred years some well-meaning pony seems determined to experiment with democracy. We usually manage to quash it before the infection spreads, but it's always sad to see ponies tricked into hurting their own best interests. At least we caught it early this time, before any other votes happened."

Twilight hung her head in shame.

"Explain." Luna demanded.

"Well, I [i]might[/i] have talked Cadance into letting a few disgruntled subjects call a vote. They were upset about non-crystal ponies—"darkies"—moving into their empire. But it turned out it was more than just "a few" and the Crystal Empire voted to leave the Equestrian Union."

"Any [i]good[/i] news?"

"Umm... San Franciscolt legalized recreational salt-licks?"

"Well then... I know where [i]I[/i] shall be waiting out the next four years! Sister?"

"Right behind you!" Celestia said, preparing for take off.

"Wait!" Twilight called. "Any last advice?"

"Next time, let Fluttershy run."