Sortition to become part of Harvard’s senate selection bylaws

Posted on October 12, 2026 by Yoram Gat

The Harvard Crimson reports:

Planning Body Releases Final Bylaws for Harvard Faculty Senate After Input From University Leadership

Harvard’s faculty senate planning body released a final set of proposed bylaws for the group Thursday, outlining a largely advisory body that would work closely with top Harvard officials to address University-wide issues.

The new bylaws, officially endorsed by Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 and Provost John F. Manning ’82 in an accompanying letter, appear to address concerns from administrators about the body’s makeup and interactions with existing governance structures.

A new stipulation requires all senators to be elected via an approval voting process, in which voters select candidates they consider acceptable — a change the planning body said “guards against factional capture.” The final bylaws also hold that if fewer than 60 percent of eligible faculty do not vote, the election will be invalid and the seats filled by sortition.

“To avoid the common issue of low-turnout elections that make many faculty senates unrepresentative, the new bylaws take concrete steps to help ensure that Senators broadly represent their respective Faculties,” Garber and Manning wrote in the letter.

Filed under: Applications, Press, Sortition |

5 Responses

Brian B, on October 26, 2026 at 6:48 pm said:

I think of sorition in this context as: randomly selecting alumni to participate, or randomly selecting faculty to participate. Is that part of this? Or is there a different definition from my understanding at play?

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Yoram Gat, on October 26, 2026 at 8:26 pm said:

My understanding is that if not enough people vote, the senate would be allotted among the faculty.

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Carl Lundgren, on October 26, 2026 at 8:47 pm said:

Brian, now that you mention it, my review of the above four paragraphs and the linked Harvard Crimson report provides no indication that anyone at Harvard is using Sortition. Yoram, is this evidence of sortition contained in the by-laws (not shown or referenced)?

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Yoram Gat, on October 26, 2026 at 8:58 pm said:

Carl,

I am not sure what you are asking. The relevant sentence from the article is:

The final bylaws also hold that if fewer than 60 percent of eligible faculty do not vote, the election will be invalid and the seats filled by sortition.

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Carl Lundgren, on October 26, 2026 at 9:56 pm said:

Sorry, human error. The paragraph started out with approval voting and ends with a nonsense conditional: “if fewer than 60 percent of eligible faculty do not vote, the election will be invalid…” To make sense, the conditional should either read “if fewer than 60 percent of eligible faculty vote…” or “if more than 60 percent of eligible faculty do not vote…” Either way, sortition happens only if not enough faculty vote. Depending on faculty voting rates and the voting threshold, sortition could happen nearly always or almost never.

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