08 | January | 2021 | Equality by lot

C.E. Johnson: The Democracy Machine

Posted on January 8, 2021 by Yoram Gat

C.E. Johnson is a multi-disciplinary visual artist working and living in Alabama.
Johnson’s work The Democracy Machine is currently on exhibit in the Contemporary Arts Center of New Orleans. The work is inspired the Athenian kleroterion. It

can be used as an object of meditation for healing in a time of disillusionment with Alabama-based politics. It is an artifact from an alternate history of the state where elections were given up to pure chance and a monument to the ideals of democracy in its authentic form.

Filed under: Athens, History, Sortition | Tagged: Art | Leave a comment »

Getting out the vote

Posted on January 8, 2021 by keithsutherland

There are twenty-six options to vote for in the poll for changing the subtitle of this blog and, at the time of writing (08 Jan) we have only seventeen voters. Unless we have a large increase in voters (this blog has 996 followers) there is a good chance that the outcome will be random in the pejorative sense, rather than reflecting the preferences of posters and readers. The poll ends on Tuesday 12th, so we would strongly encourage as many people as possible to vote. The voting system is Ranked Choice, so you can include as few or as many choices as you wish. Vote by posting a comment to https://equalitybylot.com/2021/01/05/subtitle-change-vote/.

Filed under: Ballot measures, Opinion polling | Leave a comment »

Macron’s vaccine ‘citizen panel’ is doomed to fail

Posted on January 8, 2021 by keithsutherland

A column by Keith Sutherland and Alex Kovner in the The Spectator:

France has a problem when it comes to the coronavirus vaccine. Emmanuel Macron’s administration has so far only given out around 5,000 vaccines, and France has one of the lowest levels of trust in the coronavirus vaccine in the world, with only 40 per cent of the public saying they want to be inoculated. Faced with this trust deficit, Macron has proposed a 35-member ‘citizen panel’ to oversee France’s vaccination programme. The body, made up of a random selection of French citizens, will be responsible for monitoring and advising the government when it comes to the vaccine roll-out.