SOUTH AMERICAN ELECTIONS

[two different people are being portrayed side by side]

Gabriela Rosa Sympatica
Elementary school teacher
Beloved by her community
Wants to improve lives
[portrait of a smiling woman in overalls]

Diego Hitlerio de la Junta
Son of a previous dictator
Went to jail for corruption
Wants to sterilize natives
[portrait of a frowning nasty looking character in military gear]

Temporary results (98% ballots counted):
[Gabriela] 49.9999%
[Diego] 50.0001%

https://thebad.website/comic/south_american_elections

Somehow still doing a better job than the largest country in NA

So unrealistic, the dictator would win by a way bigger margin. I'm from the Caribbean so I should know.

Do you use torrents? Because if so, gasp! Found a real one!

Makes me think of Tropico (I was the Diego Hitlerio)

Gabriel Simpatico vs Carla Hitler

Peru, right?
Is really infuring the half of a country decide the destiny of the other half, it show the dead of democratic electoral systems

It's not just Peru, this dynamic is across Latin America.

Not really, latin america is pretty fucked up man. It's a large part because of that largest country, but no, latin america is by and large a shit show. Even moreso than the US, for the moment, give it some time the US is falling fast.

One backed by propaganda & propped up by the CIA, and one who worked through their community.

Tropico 7 gets released this year. I wonder if they'll have weird interactions with the US, and have an orange president you have to deal with in the modern age or something

it's not latin america's fault latin america is a mess. latin america was much more stable before european colonization destroyed the social structures and societal infrastructure that had developed there for milenia. the fact we even call it "latin" "america" when those are both european constructs from the peninsula of italy should tell you something

The causes of it being a mess are varied sure. And as I said, due to the US, but also the espaniards before them obviously, mostly from them. They were the fucking devil. There is a reason FARC was started by renegade Jesuit Priests like Sertorius in actual spain from the roman era circa 1st century bc of colonizing spain.

Sertorius was a roman general that got disgusted by the tactics of the empire, and went over to the spanish tribes. He laid waste tot he romans for a long time, it's a great story, eventually his lieutenant killed him to take the leader post, and promptly lost to pompey that had been dispatched to deal with the rebellion. A decades long rebellion.

I digress though, the pre columbian latin america, had it's own problems, human sacrifice and such. Cutting people's hearts out while alive, skinning them alive. That is not all fabrication by the espaniards either I've been assured. They were stone age, and doing the same things the old world did in the stone age.

But now, what to do? We need to organize and cooperate on what we agree on. Then [redacted] and to buy that new mario brothers game and learn to play it multiplayer, but once again, I'm off subject.

I've been torrenting stuff since 20 years ago, LOL.

Hey, Latin American here! A few comments to expand:

• In the vast majority of Latin American countries, voting is direct. in other words, a vote for a dude is a vote for that dude, period. No electoral colleges or any of that nonsense they do in the United States (Your system is shit, I'll die on this hill).
• Most elections have a turnout that, in the very best of cases, reaches 50% of the eligible population (those over 18, registered in the system, etc.)
  • Therefore, this 50/50 in "real numbers" would be more like 25/25 or so.
  • The remaining population would consist of people who are disillusioned with the system or apathetic toward it (mostly young people).

The thing is, no matter how much of an anarchist I want to be, I can’t fully support not voting. Because it’s precisely by not voting that the Diego Hitlerios come to power and screw us all over.

(Your system is shit, I'll die on this hill).

Oh trust me, a lot of us fully agree this system is dumb as hell. Personally I'm in favor of a parliamentary system with a PM who is just a random rep from the leading party and disposing of the senate because it just artificially inflates the voting power of corn. Corn's cool and all, but I don't think corn's existence should count as like 6 Californian votes.

Diego Hitlerio said he would open up the nation's natural resources to American corporations so the CIA is running a smear campaign on Ms. Sympatica and will overthrow her if she still manages to get elected.

Cool. Stay safe and watch out for ninjas.

Me watching the peruvian ultraleftist who proudly showed a pic proving he voted for "Tung Tung Lenin" last week, not realizing he might end up being the reason his family and him will get disappeared in a fujimorist labor camp in a few months.

Nah, not camps. Sterilized and/or "disappeared", latinamerican way

the electoral college and a federal government made up of the states rather than of the people along with simple plurality voting sometimes and majority voting others are, mathematically, the least power you can give people while still issuing a ballot. a binary party system is just a unitary party system where the final votes for the party leadership is more visible.

"The people only have those rights which i allow them to have" — Dr DOOM

You need a system like Ranked Choice voting to prevent the issues that cause strategic voting and the 2 party system.

What is "Ranked Choice voting"?

I like to use a common quote from data archivists: Two is one and one is none.

The more people your system represents the better. Two party systems are an illusion of choice and single party system offer you no choice.

https://www.reuters.com/graphics/USA-ELECTION/RANKED-CHOICE/zdpxqrolgvx/

I like that this explanation has pictures

I'd be more cautious of any politician who made it that high while preaching morality in politics than the guy the media presents as evil.

Almost makes you think of the recent US presidential election, where in swing states ONLY and for in-person voting ONLY (not mail-ins), statistically anomalous numbers of Trump ballots were Democrat all the rest of the way down, in numbers just high enough for him to win but just low enough not to trigger mandatory recounts, in places where voting machines received software updates just before and just after the election.

The electoral college is one of those many US things that kinda made sense 150 years ago.

…And that we never really fixed.

Whoops.

Link please

Sorry, I can't remember the name of the sattistician who pointed this out, just opinion polls now.

I feel the comments are referring to the USA, but Canada is the largest could try in North America.

There was a site that summarized everything too, can't remember the name...

"Could try?" Anyway, true, Canada has 1.6% more land mass than USA.

Skill issue

its usually 97% fuck if I know why

They already added presidential tweets to Tropico 6.

Honestly, all I want are more options to make the city look nice

Short (mostly correct) answer is instead of picking one candidate, you rank all of them, then when your first choice loses your vote goes to your second choice.

Lets you vote honestly without worrying about who's most likely to win and gives less common options a chance

Sympatica is clearly a radical communist while hitlerio is a gentleman, let's see what he has to say for the next 24 hours of television

one who worked through their community.

Which miraculously didn't die by CIA hands

As a Brazilian, can confirm, fucking idiots elected Bolsonaro back in 2018 and nearly reelected him in 2022, which led to a coup attempt in Jan 8, 2023. Bozo is being judged, but one of his sons might run for president this year and, despite a very obvious case of "asking for money from a corrupt friend", he's still the leading right-wing candidate. Of course, Brazil being Brazil, there are 3 other right-wing candidates that are exactly the same in nearly everything to bozo, but under a different name.

Shit like that makes me think Americans aren't that different than they're "third world" counter parts

They’re the ones that made the Americas like that.

Yeah but they fall for propaganda all the same. I find hilarious and also an obligation to do counter propaganda

i remember this theory - there were a few issues, if i remember right:

the most obvious being there isn't actually a way to know how many people vote red or blue down-ballot (for the very obvious reason that nobody knows how specific people's ballots look) so the guy was making some wild assumptions,

which isn't shocking considering this same guy had run to the news crying wolf about a previous election (which it isn't as popular to be conspiritorial about) with similarly massaged logic,

and the very short list of districts which "inexplicably" voted as a block against democrats, if you literally just look at the election history, usually vote as a block and sometimes for republicans - claims it was statistically impossible or whatever really don't hold up to basic scrutiny,

genuinely i get it, it would be really comforting (in a way) to explain away trump getting elected again as the result of clandestine actors literally flipping bits or whatever, but they didn't appear to have done that so please stop credulously believing things like this without taking a few minutes to look into it and check if it actually holds water.

the dnc annointed deeply unpopular biden to run again and let him make a fool of himself long after it was clear he wasn't up to it and didn't have popular support, replaced him with his vp who wasn't willing to distinguish herself from him on policy and who sought republican votes at the cost of building enthusiastic support from the whole big tent of democrats, literally refused to even record feedback they received specifically about voters being fed up with the genocide of palestinians when canvassing and conducting surveys, etc. and on the republican side they have engaged in very loud very public voter suppression increasingly for a long time - we don't need to look for hidden (especially trivially disprovable) insight into what happened when there were such obvious reasons

it only "made sense" then to preserve the power of the elite pseudo-aristocracy, which is the same thing it does now too (despite the other changes that have been made)

It's something expected to happen in first past the post electoral systems. It's by design things like these happen

To not try to at least prevent the worst outcome from happening and to not try to make the situation better at least somewhat is just stupid. Although I see myself as an anarchist I vote in every election. There is always a not so shit option on the ballot.
Just voting is still not enough and real change will most certainly not come through a election.

Yeah first pass the post system does fucky things, but the issue is the dictator being viable and shows that there's population of that country that supports their violence and oppression...

It's like watching trump win the 2024 primaries and realizing maga is still core to the Republican party

That only happens if there's a chance of them winning, silly

this honestly sounds awesome

rookie numbers, Putin got way over 100% in some districts