Sortition
Encyclopedia
In politics, sortition (also known as allotment or the drawing of lots) is the selection of decision makers by lottery
. The decision-makers are chosen as a random sample from a larger pool of candidates.
In ancient Athenian democracy
, sortition was the primary method for appointing officials, and its use was widely regarded as a principal characteristic of democracy
. It is commonly used today to select prospective jurors in common law-based legal systems.
(equality of law and political rights), and sortition was the principal way of achieving this fairness. It was used to select most of the magistrates for their governing committees, and for their juries (typically of 501 people). Aristotle
relates equality and democracy:
In Athens, "democracy" (literally meaning rule by the people) was in opposition to those supporting oligarchy (rule by a few). Athenian democracy was characterised by being run by the "many" (the ordinary people) who were allotted to the committees which ran government. Thucydides
has Pericles
make this point in his Funeral Oration: "It is administered by the many instead of the few; that is why it is called a democracy."
The Athenians believed sortition to be more democratic than elections and used complex procedures with purpose-built allotment machines (kleroteria
) to avoid the corrupt practices used by oligarchs to buy their way into office. According to the author Mogens Herman Hansen
the citizen's court was superior to the assembly because the allotted members swore an oath which ordinary citizens in the assembly did not and therefore the court could annul the decisions of the assembly.
Both Aristotle
and Herodotus
(one of the earliest writers on democracy) emphasize selection by lot as a test of democracy:
Past scholarship maintained that sortition had its roots in the use of chance to divine the will of the gods, but this view is no longer common among scholars.
in Anglo-Saxon legal systems and
in small groups (e.g., picking a school class monitor by drawing straws
). In public decision-making, individuals are often determined by allotment if other forms of selection such as election
fail to achieve a result. Examples include certain hung elections and certain votes in the UK Parliament. Some contemporary thinkers have advocated a greater use of selection by lot in today’s political system
s for example reform of the British House of Lords and proposals at the time of the adoption of the current Constitution of Iraq
.
Sortition proposals put forward for discussion in the modern world generally relate to the means for selecting a large legislative body (such as the U.S. Congress) from among the adult population at large.
A modern advocate of sortition, political scientist John Burnheim
, argues for sortition as follows (Is Democracy Possible?, pp. 124–5):
Fairness & Equality
Democratic
Less corruptible than elections
Fair representation
Power to ordinary people
Voter fatigue
Loyalty is to conscience not to political party
Sortition can put in power people with minority views
The voting process creates interest, debate, learning, and community
Voting confers legitimacy
Some forms of sortition entail compulsion
Enthusiasm of the representatives
Lower sense of accountability
The selection method may need to be carefully designed in order to preserve public confidence that it has not been rigged. One robust, general, public method allotment is RFC 3797: Publicly Verifiable Nominations Committee Random Selection.
Using it, multiple specific sources of random numbers (e.g. lotteries) are selected in advance, and an algorithm is defined for selecting the winners based on those random numbers. When the random numbers become available, anyone can calculate the winners.
Lottery
A lottery is a form of gambling which involves the drawing of lots for a prize.Lottery is outlawed by some governments, while others endorse it to the extent of organizing a national or state lottery. It is common to find some degree of regulation of lottery by governments...
. The decision-makers are chosen as a random sample from a larger pool of candidates.
In ancient Athenian democracy
Athenian democracy
Athenian democracy developed in the Greek city-state of Athens, comprising the central city-state of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica, around 508 BC. Athens is one of the first known democracies. Other Greek cities set up democracies, and even though most followed an Athenian model,...
, sortition was the primary method for appointing officials, and its use was widely regarded as a principal characteristic of democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
. It is commonly used today to select prospective jurors in common law-based legal systems.
Ancient Athens
Athenian democracy developed in the sixth century BC out of what was then called isonomiaIsonomia
Isonomia was a word used by Ancient Greek writers such as Herodotus and Thucydides to refer to some kind of popular government...
(equality of law and political rights), and sortition was the principal way of achieving this fairness. It was used to select most of the magistrates for their governing committees, and for their juries (typically of 501 people). Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
relates equality and democracy:
In Athens, "democracy" (literally meaning rule by the people) was in opposition to those supporting oligarchy (rule by a few). Athenian democracy was characterised by being run by the "many" (the ordinary people) who were allotted to the committees which ran government. Thucydides
Thucydides
Thucydides was a Greek historian and author from Alimos. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 BC...
has Pericles
Pericles
Pericles was a prominent and influential statesman, orator, and general of Athens during the city's Golden Age—specifically, the time between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars...
make this point in his Funeral Oration: "It is administered by the many instead of the few; that is why it is called a democracy."
The Athenians believed sortition to be more democratic than elections and used complex procedures with purpose-built allotment machines (kleroteria
Kleroterion
The kleroterion is a randomization device used by the Athenian polis during the period of democracy to select citizens to the boule, to most state offices, to the Nomothetai, and to court juries. The kleroterion was a slab of stone incised with rows of slots and with an attached tube...
) to avoid the corrupt practices used by oligarchs to buy their way into office. According to the author Mogens Herman Hansen
Mogens Herman Hansen
Mogens Herman Hansen FBA is a Danish classical philologist who is one of the leading scholars in Athenian Democracy and the Polis....
the citizen's court was superior to the assembly because the allotted members swore an oath which ordinary citizens in the assembly did not and therefore the court could annul the decisions of the assembly.
Both Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
and Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
(one of the earliest writers on democracy) emphasize selection by lot as a test of democracy:
Past scholarship maintained that sortition had its roots in the use of chance to divine the will of the gods, but this view is no longer common among scholars.
Today
Sortition is commonly used in selecting juriesJury
A jury is a sworn body of people convened to render an impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Modern juries tend to be found in courts to ascertain the guilt, or lack thereof, in a crime. In Anglophone jurisdictions, the verdict may be guilty,...
in Anglo-Saxon legal systems and
in small groups (e.g., picking a school class monitor by drawing straws
Drawing straws
Drawing straws is a selection method that is used by a group to choose one member of the group to perform a task after none has volunteered for it...
). In public decision-making, individuals are often determined by allotment if other forms of selection such as election
Election
An election is a formal decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy operates since the 17th century. Elections may fill offices in the legislature, sometimes in the...
fail to achieve a result. Examples include certain hung elections and certain votes in the UK Parliament. Some contemporary thinkers have advocated a greater use of selection by lot in today’s political system
Political system
A political system is a system of politics and government. It is usually compared to the legal system, economic system, cultural system, and other social systems...
s for example reform of the British House of Lords and proposals at the time of the adoption of the current Constitution of Iraq
Constitution of Iraq
The Constitution of Iraq is Iraq's fundamental law.-History:Iraq's first constitution, which established a constitutional monarchy, entered into force under the auspices of a British military occupation in 1925 and remained in effect until the 1958 revolution established a republic...
.
Sortition proposals put forward for discussion in the modern world generally relate to the means for selecting a large legislative body (such as the U.S. Congress) from among the adult population at large.
Advantages
Effective representation of the interests of the peopleA modern advocate of sortition, political scientist John Burnheim
John Burnheim
John Burnheim is a former professor of General Philosophy at the University of Sydney, Australia.In his book Is Democracy Possible? John Burnheim utilized the term "demarchy" to describe a political system without the state or bureaucracies, and based instead on randomly selected groups of...
, argues for sortition as follows (Is Democracy Possible?, pp. 124–5):
But do we, in order to have democracy, have to find a way in which the demos first makes up its mind what is to be done and then controls its representatives in the process of carrying it out? What I want to suggest is a different conception. Let the convention for deciding what is our common will be that we will accept the decision of a group of people who are well informed about the question, well-motivated to find as good a solution as possible and representative of our range of interests simply because they are statistically representative of us as a group. If this group is then responsible for carrying out what it decides, the problem of control of the execution process largely vanishes. Those directing the execution process are carrying out their own decisions. They may need a little prodding to keep them up to the mark, but there is no institutional basis for a conflict of interest between bodies responsible for making decisions and those responsible for execution. They have an overriding interest in showing that their decisions are practical and well-grounded.
Fairness & Equality
- Sortition is inherently egalitarian in that it ensures all citizens have an equal chance of entering office irrespective of any bias in society:
Compared to a voting system – even one that is open to all citizens – a citizen-wide lottery scheme for public office lowers the threshold to office. This is because ordinary citizens do not have to compete against more powerful or influential adversaries in order to take office, and because the selection procedure does not favour those who have pre-existing advantages or connections – as invariably happens with election by preference. From an organisational point of view a citizen-wide lottery system gives all citizens an equal stake in the office in question and so defines the size of the active (or potentially active) citizen body.
Democratic
- Almost all Greek writers who mention democracy (including AristotleAristotleAristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
, PlatoPlatoPlato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
and HerodotusHerodotusHerodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
) both emphasise the role of selection by lot or state outright that being allotted is more democratic than elections. For example AristotleAristotleAristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
says:
"it is thought to be democratic for the offices to be assigned by lot, for them to be elected is oligarchic,"
- We see the same idea in the 18th century after the re-emergence of democracy in the writings of Charles de Secondat, baron de MontesquieuCharles de Secondat, baron de MontesquieuCharles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu , generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French social commentator and political thinker who lived during the Enlightenment...
:
"The suffrage
SuffrageSuffrage, political franchise, or simply the franchise, distinct from mere voting rights, is the civil right to vote gained through the democratic process...
by lot is natural to democracy, as that by choice is to aristocracy"
Less corruptible than elections
- Sortition may be less corruptible than voting because processes can be developed to ensure that selection is completely fair. For example, Athenians used complex allotment procedures with an intricate machine to allot officers. Like Athenian democrats, critics of electoral politics in the twenty-first century argue that the process of election by vote is subject to manipulation by money and other powerful forces and because legislative elections give power to a few powerful groups they are believed to be less democratic system than selection by lot from amongst the population.
Fair representation
- Modern supporters see selection by lot as overcoming the various demographic biases in race, religionReligionReligion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
, sexSexIn biology, sex is a process of combining and mixing genetic traits, often resulting in the specialization of organisms into a male or female variety . Sexual reproduction involves combining specialized cells to form offspring that inherit traits from both parents...
, etc. apparent in many legislative assemblies. This actually differs somewhat from Athenian democracyAthenian democracyAthenian democracy developed in the Greek city-state of Athens, comprising the central city-state of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica, around 508 BC. Athens is one of the first known democracies. Other Greek cities set up democracies, and even though most followed an Athenian model,...
, in which women (and others) were not eligible to participate, and therefore a bias was inherent.
Power to ordinary people
- An inherent problem with electoral politics is the over-representative of the politically active groups in society who tend to be those who join political parties. For example in 2000 less than 2% of the UK population belonged to a political party whilst in 2005 there were at best only 3 independent MPsMember of ParliamentA Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
(see List of UK minor party and independent MPs elected) so that 99.5% of all UK MPs belonged to a political partyPolitical partyA political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...
. As a result political members of the UK population were represented by one MP per 1800 of those belonging to a party whilst those who did not belong to a party had one MP per 19million individuals who did not belong to a party.
Voter fatigue
- Supporters also argue that sortition alleviates the problems of voter fatigueVoter fatigueIn politics, voter fatigue is the apathy that the electorate can experience when they are required to vote too often.It is often used as a criticism of the direct democracy system, in which voters are constantly asked to decide on policy via referenda...
and rational ignoranceRational ignoranceRational ignorance occurs when the cost of educating oneself on an issue exceeds the potential benefit that the knowledge would provide.Ignorance about an issue is said to be "rational" when the cost of educating oneself about the issue sufficiently to make an informed decision can outweigh any...
, which is seen as a problem in both representative democracyRepresentative democracyRepresentative democracy is a form of government founded on the principle of elected individuals representing the people, as opposed to autocracy and direct democracy...
and direct democracyDirect democracyDirect democracy is a form of government in which people vote on policy initiatives directly, as opposed to a representative democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives. Direct democracy is classically termed "pure democracy"...
.
Loyalty is to conscience not to political party
- Elected representatives typically rely on political parties in order to gain and retain office. This means they often feel a primary loyalty to the party and will vote contrary to conscience to support a party position. Representatives appointed by sortition do not owe anything to anyone for their position.
Disadvantages
Pure sortition does not discriminate- The most common argument against pure sortition (that is, with no prior selection of an eligible group) is that it does not discriminate those selected and takes no account of particular skills or experience that might be needed to effectively discharge the particular offices filled. Just as the Athenians did not choose generals (StrategosStrategosStrategos, plural strategoi, is used in Greek to mean "general". In the Hellenistic and Byzantine Empires the term was also used to describe a military governor...
) by lot, so today most would agree that random selection from the general population would not be a good way of filling the role of medical surgeonSurgerySurgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical...
or aircraft pilotAviatorAn aviator is a person who flies an aircraft. The first recorded use of the term was in 1887, as a variation of 'aviation', from the Latin avis , coined in 1863 by G. de la Landelle in Aviation Ou Navigation Aérienne...
due to the specialist skills that those roles require. The same is argued for many political offices as, under a system based on election, it is thought unlikely that those manifestly lacking the requisite skills will be elected to office. According to XenophonXenophonXenophon , son of Gryllus, of the deme Erchia of Athens, also known as Xenophon of Athens, was a Greek historian, soldier, mercenary, philosopher and a contemporary and admirer of Socrates...
(MemorabiliaMemorabilia (Xenophon)Memorabilia is a collection of Socratic dialogues by Xenophon, a student of Socrates...
Book I, 2.9), this classical argument was offered by SocratesSocratesSocrates was a classical Greek Athenian philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his contemporary ...
:
-
- [Socrates] taught his companions to despise the established laws by insisting on the folly of appointing public officials by lot, when none would choose a pilot or builder or flautist by lot, nor any other craftsman for work in which mistakes are far less disastrous than mistakes in statecraft.
- The same argument is also made by Edmund BurkeEdmund BurkeEdmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....
in his essay Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790):
-
- There is no qualification for government but virtue and wisdom, actual or presumptive. [...] Everything ought to be open, but not indifferently, to every man. No rotation; no appointment by lot; no mode of election operating in the spirit of sortition or rotation can be generally good in a government conversant in extensive objects. Because they have no tendency, direct or indirect, to select the man with a view to the duty or to accommodate the one to the other.
- However, supporters of sortition, such as Ernest CallenbachErnest CallenbachErnest Callenbach is an American writer. Life & Work =Born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, he attended the University of Chicago, where he was drawn into the then 'new wave' of serious attention to film as an art form...
and Michael Phillips, argue that there is nothing in the structure of elected government that suggests representatives will be any more intelligent or capable than those they represent. Indeed, the very question is complex, since we can always ask, "who defines capable?". Moreover, political decision making is arguably not a craft or science, as Socrates suggests. There is not one correct answer to a political question, as in science or mathematics, but rather politics is a question of values, interests and aims. In a democracy, the values, interests and aims that should be satisfied are those of the populace, and therefore the populace is arguably qualified by definition. Certainly, there is room for expertise in formulating the process whereby people's aims will be achieved, but not in deciding those aims. A randomly selected house could listen to the advice of experts, as elected houses do now.
Sortition can put in power people with minority views
- Some of the officials selected by sortition may hold views that greatly differ from those common in the population. For example, an unusually rich official may be selected, and once in power may try to use it to change a tax system in a way that will benefit himself and other rich individuals, in a manner that is opposed by, and possibly detrimental to, individuals who are not as wealthy. However for appointing parliamentarians it is argued that a truly representative democracy should allow for the inclusion of minority views.
The voting process creates interest, debate, learning, and community
- The process of voting in itself has value; it creates interest and public debate on the future direction of public policy; it may also encourage deeper learning on the issues at stake; it also makes people less isolated by creating various organizations and parties. On the other hand, many modern political campaigns are centered on politically-irrelevant issues.
Voting confers legitimacy
- Those who see voting as expressing the "consent of the governedConsent of the governed"Consent of the governed" is a phrase synonymous with a political theory wherein a government's legitimacy and moral right to use state power is only justified and legal when derived from the people or society over which that political power is exercised...
", maintain that voting is able to confer legitimacy in the selection. According to this view, elected officials can act with greater authority than when randomly selected. A counter-argument is that by consenting to sortition as used for a jury, the public consents to this form of selection.
Some forms of sortition entail compulsion
- If a system of pure, universal sortition is also involuntary, then measures for compelling people to serve need to be instituted. If a system allows people to opt out of service, it may be disenfranchising those who won't or can't serve. This could be fixed by letting those selected choose a replacement, or the use of random ballotRandom ballotThe random ballot is a hypothetical voting method; in an election or referendum, the ballot of a single voter is selected at random, and that ballot decides the result of the election...
s (aka lottery voting) to achieve the same effect while preserving secrecy.
Enthusiasm of the representatives
- In an elected system, the representatives are to a degree self-selecting for their enthusiasm for the job. Under a system of pure, universal sortition the individuals are not chosen for their enthusiasm. Many electoral systems assign to those chosen a role as representing their constituents; a complex job with a significant workload. Elected representative choose to accept any additional workload; voters can also choose those representatives most willing to accept the burden involved in being a representative. Individuals chosen at random from a comprehensive pool of citizens have no particular enthusiasm for their role and therefore may not make good advocates for a constituency. This may be less of an issue in a house of legislative review.
Lower sense of accountability
- In an elected system, the representatives generally seek re-election at some future date. This makes them more accountable for their actions, at least notionally.
Methods
Before the random selection can be done, the pool of candidates must be defined. Systems vary as to whether they allot from eligible volunteers, or from the membership or population at large.The selection method may need to be carefully designed in order to preserve public confidence that it has not been rigged. One robust, general, public method allotment is RFC 3797: Publicly Verifiable Nominations Committee Random Selection.
Using it, multiple specific sources of random numbers (e.g. lotteries) are selected in advance, and an algorithm is defined for selecting the winners based on those random numbers. When the random numbers become available, anyone can calculate the winners.
Examples
- Historical
- The Athenian democracyAthenian democracyAthenian democracy developed in the Greek city-state of Athens, comprising the central city-state of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica, around 508 BC. Athens is one of the first known democracies. Other Greek cities set up democracies, and even though most followed an Athenian model,...
made much use of sortition, with nearly all government offices filled by lottery rather than by election. - The Doge of VeniceDoge of VeniceThe Doge of Venice , often mistranslated Duke was the chief magistrate and leader of the Most Serene Republic of Venice for over a thousand years. Doges of Venice were elected for life by the city-state's aristocracy. Commonly the person selected as Doge was the shrewdest elder in the city...
was appointed by a lengthy procedure using alternating rounds of sortition and election. - The Signoria of FlorenceSignoria of FlorenceThe Signoria was the government of medieval and renaissance Florence. Its nine members, the Priori, were chosen from the ranks of the guilds of the city: six of them from the major guilds, and two from the minor guilds...
and other Italian city-statesItalian city-statesThe Italian city-states were a political phenomenon of small independent states mostly in the central and northern Italian peninsula between the 10th and 15th centuries....
was elected by lot during the medieval period.
- The Athenian democracy
- Modern
- JuriesJuryA jury is a sworn body of people convened to render an impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Modern juries tend to be found in courts to ascertain the guilt, or lack thereof, in a crime. In Anglophone jurisdictions, the verdict may be guilty,...
are found in courts of law, and in the context of community involvement as citizens' juriesCitizens' juryA Citizens' Jury is a mechanism of participatory action research that draws on the symbolism, and some of the practices, of a legal trial by jury. It generally includes three main elements:...
. - In 2004 Canadian province of British ColumbiaBritish ColumbiaBritish Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
asked a randomly selected group of citizens forming the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral ReformCitizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform (British Columbia)The Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform is a group created by the government of British Columbia, Canada to investigate changes to the provincial electoral system...
to propose a new electoral system for the provincial government. 3 years later the province of OntarioOntarioOntario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
did the sameCitizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform (Ontario)The Government of the Canadian province of Ontario established a Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform in March 2006. Modelled on the British Columbia equivalent, it reviewed the first past the post electoral system currently in use to elect members of the Ontario Legislature, with the authority...
. - MASS LBP, a Canadian company inspired by the work of the Citizens' Assemblies on Electoral ReformCitizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform (Ontario)The Government of the Canadian province of Ontario established a Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform in March 2006. Modelled on the British Columbia equivalent, it reviewed the first past the post electoral system currently in use to elect members of the Ontario Legislature, with the authority...
has pioneered the use of Citizens' Reference Panels for addressing a range of policy issues for public sector clients. The Reference Panels use civic lotteries, a modern form of sortition, to randomly select citizen-representatives from the general public. - DanishDenmarkDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
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 representative. - The South Australian Constitutional Convention was a deliberative opinion pollDeliberative opinion pollThe deliberative opinion poll is a form of opinion poll that incorporates the principles of deliberative democracy and sortition.The concept was described by James S. Fishkin in his 1991 book "Democracy and Deliberation". Dr...
created to consider changes to the state constitution. - Some election laws regarding certain offices in the United States provide that, in the case of a tie between the leading candidates, a coin toss (rather than a runoff election) shall be conducted.
- In the election of electorate MPs in New ZealandNew ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, if there is a tie between the leading candidates and this situation persists after an obligatory recount, the Chief Electoral OfficerChief Electoral OfficerThe Chief Electoral Officer is the person responsible for overseeing elections in some commonwealth countries and provinces.Specifically, it may refer to:* Chief Electoral Officer * Chief Electoral Officer...
chooses the MP from among the leading candidates by lot. (The UK http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.dca.gov.uk/elections/gen-elec-brief-info.pdf, New Mexico http://www.sos.state.nm.us/pdf/NMElectHdbk.pdf and other governments have similar rules for breaking ties.)
- Juries
- Non-government
- The Internet Engineering Task ForceInternet Engineering Task ForceThe Internet Engineering Task Force develops and promotes Internet standards, cooperating closely with the W3C and ISO/IEC standards bodies and dealing in particular with standards of the TCP/IP and Internet protocol suite...
uses sortition to select the nominating committeeNominating committeeA nominating committee is a group formed usually from inside the membership of an organization for the purpose of nominating candidates for office within the organization...
which selects its leadership. It has also defined a robust, general, public method for making random selections: RFC 3797 - Publicly Verifiable Nominations Committee Random Selection - Consensus conferences have been run in the USA by the Loka Institute, a nonprofit organization concerned with the social, political, and environmental repercussions of research, science and technology.
- Deliberative polls
- Several Spanish savings bankSavings bankA savings bank is a financial institution whose primary purpose is accepting savings deposits. It may also perform some other functions.In Europe, savings banks originated in the 19th or sometimes even the 18th century. Their original objective was to provide easily accessible savings products to...
s (caja de ahorros) randomly elect compromisaries among some account holders (for example, those who had an account for more than four years and with mean holdings over the minimum wageMinimum wageA minimum wage is the lowest hourly, daily or monthly remuneration that employers may legally pay to workers. Equivalently, it is the lowest wage at which workers may sell their labour. Although minimum wage laws are in effect in a great many jurisdictions, there are differences of opinion about...
in Caja de Ahorros de Asturias (2002)). Those chosen then gather in assembly to elect the bank members representing account holders. - In Spain, Argentina and Switzerland, citizens are randomly selected to manage ballot boxes and count ballots on election days.
- The Slashcode forum software as used in SlashdotSlashdotSlashdot is a technology-related news website owned by Geeknet, Inc. The site, which bills itself as "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters", features user-submitted and ‑evaluated current affairs news stories about science- and technology-related topics. Each story has a comments section...
randomly elects forum moderators that assign points to postings. The randomness is weighted with karma and posting frequency. The registered readers can later meta-moderateMeta-moderation systemA meta-moderation system is an arrangement used on some Internet websites which invite user comments.Users rate how good a job moderators are doing. The most famous site with such a feature is Slashdot...
the work of the random moderators.
- The Internet Engineering Task Force
- Proposals
- Political scientist Robert A. DahlRobert A. DahlRobert Alan Dahl , is the Sterling Professor emeritus of political science at Yale University, where he earned his Ph.D. in political science in 1940. He is past president of the American Political Science Association...
suggests in his book Democracy and its critics (p. 340) that an advanced democratic state could form groups which he calls minipopuli. Each group would consist "of perhaps a thousand citizens randomly selected out of the entire demos," and would either set an agenda of issues or deal with a particular major issue. It would "hold hearings, commission research, and engage in debate and discussion." Dahl suggests having the minipopuli as supplementing rather than replacing legislative bodies. - DemarchyDemarchyDemarchy is a form of government in which the state is governed by randomly selected decision makers who have been selected by sortition from a broadly inclusive pool of eligible citizens...
is a political system in which many small "citizen's juries" would deliberate and make decisions about public policies. - Ernest CallenbachErnest CallenbachErnest Callenbach is an American writer. Life & Work =Born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, he attended the University of Chicago, where he was drawn into the then 'new wave' of serious attention to film as an art form...
and Michael PhillipsMichael PhillipsMichael Phillips is the name of:*Michael Phillips *Michael Phillips *Michael Phillips *Michael Phillips *Michael Phillips , figure skater and ice dancer...
argue for random selection of the U.S. House of Representatives in their book A Citizen Legislature. - "Convened-sample suffrage" uses sortition to choose an electoral collegeElectoral collegeAn electoral college is a set of electors who are selected to elect a candidate to a particular office. Often these represent different organizations or entities, with each organization or entity represented by a particular number of electors or with votes weighted in a particular way...
for each electoral districtElectoral districtAn electoral district is a distinct territorial subdivision for holding a separate election for one or more seats in a legislative body...
. - "Accidental Politicians: How Randomly Selected Legislators Can Improve Parliament Efficiency": a new Italian study which shows how the introduction of a variable percentage of randomly selected independent legislators in a Parliament can increase the global efficiency of a Legislature, in terms of both number of laws passed and average social welfare obtained (this work is in line with the recent discovery that the adoption of random strategies can improve the efficiency of hierarchical organizations "Peter Principle Revisited: a Computational Study").
- The upper houseUpper houseAn upper house, often called a senate, is one of two chambers of a bicameral legislature, the other chamber being the lower house; a legislature composed of only one house is described as unicameral.- Possible specific characteristics :...
of a parliament might be selected through sortition. Anthony Barnett and Peter Carty proposed this to the Royal Commission on the Reform of the House of Lords in the UK in 1999. Their proposal was published: The Athenian Option: Radical Reform for the House of Lords. Similarly, the People's Senate PartyPeople's Senate PartyPolitical party in British Columbia registered on Sept 20, 2011. The party holds the position that BC needs a senate, but formed from a random selection of citizens similar to how a courtroom jury is formed...
in British Columbia, Canada promotes this notion.
- Political scientist Robert A. Dahl
External links
- Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform (official website).
- South Australian Constitutional Convention (official website)
- The Loka Institute (official website)
- A Citizen Legislature
- Integrating Public Voting and Random Selection for Democracy
- Sorted: Civic lotteries and the future of public participation
- List of books dealing with sortition
- The Common Lot
- People's Senate Party