Sortition on TED-Ed

Posted on March 23, 2026 by Yoram Gat

An animated video named “Could lotteries replace elections?” on the popular channel TED-Ed has amassed almost 100,000 views since it was published a few days ago. The video makes many familiar and incoherent arguments for and against “lottocracy”, with Alex Guerrero, Cristina Lafont and Nadia Urbinati mentioned by name.

Toward the end, the video does come surprisingly close to making the fundamental point that democracy should be about building “institutions that serve everyone and address real problems”. (Unsurprisingly, this is immediately followed by a cliché about it being “up to us to keep experimenting until we find a system that achieves those ideals”.)

Filed under: Academia, Elections, Participation, Sortition, video |

4 Responses

keithsutherland, on March 24, 2026 at 10:33 am said:

Struck me as pretty fair (I didn’t spot any incoherences or cliches)

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Anonymous, on March 25, 2026 at 9:40 pm said:

Good news!

We don’t need to cancel our existing arrangements and implement a completely different design in one go with all the risks of mistakes and opportunities for power-hungry individuals that would present.

We can start using sortition incrementally, for those issues that are seemingly-intractable by elected politicians – tax reform, housing/homelessness, emissions reduction, “youth crime” – and then take it to the next phase based on what we learn.

🥳

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el_gallo_azul, on March 25, 2026 at 9:44 pm said:

Good news!

We don’t need to cancel our existing arrangements and implement a completely different design in one go with all the risks of mistakes and opportunities for power-hungry individuals that would present.

We can start using sortition incrementally, for those issues that are seemingly-intractable by elected politicians – tax reform, housing/homelessness, emissions reduction, “youth crime” – and then take it to the next phase based on what we learn.

🥳

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keithsutherland, on March 26, 2026 at 10:29 am said:

>We can start using sortition incrementally, for those issues that are seemingly-intractable by elected politicians.

True, and (as was the case with abortion reform in Ireland), the sortitional approach is likely to be welcomed by politicians. The danger, though, is that citizens’ assemblies could be used as cover for antidemocratic practices.

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