PI NEWS – The Elections
Hi everyone!
Today is election day. There are at least two elections today – the political one which people seem to be talking about a lot, (only not here because they aren’t having an election in Greece), and the very important digit election, which is what this edition of the Pi News is about. My little sisters would like to point out that there is also a third election to determine the names of our family kittens, but anyway, you don’t get to vote in that one either.

The digits take their elections very seriously, and in order to avoid making the voters bored of the elections before they happen or anyone having the opportunity to influence voters at all, they do not usually make their manifestos public. However, we feel that knowing the policies of the party you are voting for does really help with making decisions, so we have collected information about all the major digits, to help you decide who to vote for.

	0 plans to reduce all contracts to zero-hour contracts, as well as making them zero-money contracts, and zero-point contracts. Further to its zero contract ideals, it also wants to be alone as it dislikes the concepts of "divisibility" and "positivity". So it is planning to withdraw from the Numbers Union.
	1, also known as the Unity Party, believes that every number should be treated equally so as such will create a Communist government. Also, due to its dislike of class division, histograms will be banned.
	2 will establish a shrine to itself as the only number for which adding two of them together will produce the same result as them multiplied together, by taxing old prime numbers. Critics, however, warn that "2 can be as bad as 1", so believe that it will back 1's reckless spending plans.
	3 plans to create the "Three's a party Act", in which every group of three people will have a drone flown towards them with a disco ball and playing a cool techno bassline. Even Especially in libraries. 3 also promises to build 200 new Woolworths a year by 2020, by factorising foreign aid or square rooting the "divisibility fund".
	4 plans to reduce crime and increase pest control through "Death by Induction", where if the first criminal/pest can be dealt with, and the next criminal/pest can be dealt with, then all criminals/pests can be dealt with, by induction. Because that's obviously how weapons work. Because of this, the military will be reduced to a single 4-year old child armed with a catapult, allowing the money saved to be invested in binomially expanding the NHS budget.
	5, being the median of all of the digits (rounded up), is advertising itself as the "Compromise Party", that is, it has no real policies and instead just wants to get into power as a coalition. In doing so it has stated that it will be "the heart of a 0-based government and the head of a 1/2/1 coalition".
	6 will constantly U-turn between its own policies and 9's policies, although it doesn't really have any policies of its own so it will pretty much repeatedly do an 180 degree turn between advocating 9 and eating lots of cake. It will fund this with a tax on non-rotational symmetry, as it doesn't want to tax itself.
	7, being the most likely number to be chosen if you ask someone for a number between zero and nine (as well as one and ten), thinks that it doesn't need any serious policies as voters will get to the ballot box and when asked for a number between zero and nine to vote for will always pick seven. Thus it has decided to promote the usage of penguins in maths questions, an issue that hits home to about seven voters. Seven has repeatedly denied rumours that it does not, in fact, exist.
	8 wants to make the world a better place, by taxing voters that say that 8 looks like a snowman. 8 has also proposed the abolition of the Winter Fuel Payments to fund heavy subsidies for carrots, sticks and scarves. In other news, 8 advocates legislation granting pi and e equal rights to integers.
	9 will constantly U-turn between its own policies and 6's policies, although it doesn't really have any policies of its own so it will pretty much repeatedly do an 180 degree turn between advocating 6 and eating lots of biscuits. It will fund this with a tax on rotational symmetry, as if it starts to advocate six then it will end up taxing itself if 9 funds its policies with non-rotational symmetry as its policies would be symmetrical with 6's. Either way, if you vote for 6 or 9, there will be a lot of food involved.

We hope this information has made you feel more able to vote.

If you want to vote in this election, please respond to this e-mail with your votes. We have been asked whether we are using first past the post or AV to run this election. Having considered the relative benefits of each voting system, we have decided that an entirely different voting system is needed to run this election, as the other voting systems have the fundamental flaw that the most popular digit might actually win. This voting system will be better explained once we have finalised the details.
Your vote should list your top three digits, in order, and then your least favourite digit. If you are able to vote, please do vote, and if anyone would like to vote but doesn’t receive the Pi News, please send this e-mail on to them, as we want to have lots of votes, because if you have lots of votes then you can do more pretty statistics graph stuff, and also it is probably more democratic.

Votes can be submitted any time between now and 10:00 am on Friday. Enjoy the elections.
The Mysteriously Mysterious Team Pi