Sortition

Sortition is the act of random selection, particularly of decision makers. Today the only government positions regularly filled this way are court juries, however it has been used for political and administrative offices, sometimes combined with an element of qualification or election.

Classical advocates of sortition, such as Aristotle, held that it was a more democratic process than election since it was less influenced by money and fame. Contemporary supporters also add that sortition allows direct democracy to scale up to today's large populations: by reducing the number of people making a decision from the whole population down to an unbiased sample of that population, sortition alleviates the problems of voter fatigue and rational ignorance which occur in general elections and referenda.

Examples:

• Historical
  • The Athenian Democracy made much use of sortition, with nearly all government offices filled by lottery rather than by election.
  • The Doges of Venice were appointed by a lengthy procedure which alternated between sortition and election.
• Current
  • Juries still exist but today are only found in law courts.
  • The Canadian province of British Columbia is asking a randomly selected citizens assembly to choose a new electoral system. http://www.citizensassembly.bc.ca/.
  • Danish Consensus Conferences give ordinary citizens a chance to make their voices heard in debates on public policy. The selection of citizens is not perfectly random, but still aims to be representitive.
• Non Government
  • Consensus conferences have been run un the USA by the Loka Institute, a nonprofit organization concerned with the social, political, and environmental repercussions of research, science and technology.
  • Deliberative Polls
• Proposals
  • Demarchy is a political system in which many small "citizen's juries" would deliberate and make decisions about public policies.
  • Ernest Callenbach and Michael Phillips argue for random selection of the U.S. House of Representitives in their book "A Citizen Legislature".

Related Links

• http://www.constitution.org/elec/sortition.htm
• http://www.sortition.org.uk