Sortition Research – What do we need to learn to make better recommendations on sortition?

Posted on April 20, 2025 by johnhuang865

“What is the best government?” Can we answer this empirically? What kind of research could be conducted to answer these questions? I ask the readers of this blog to generate some ideas.

Potential Research Areas

Randomly Controlled Trials

Small-scale trials of democracy are indeed possible, and it might be possible to measure outcomes. Randomly Controlled Trials (RCT) are the typical gold standard, where a random selection of participants get a treatment and the rest are assigned as the control group.

For example labor unions or worker owned cooperatives might be persuaded with financial incentives to become test subjects. However, small scale trials might not be able to simulate the incentive structures of large democracies which may be subject to phenomenon such as “rational ignorance” and the reduction of the “expected value” of a participant’s vote.

On the other hand, perhaps small organizations *are* able to simulate these incentives. For example the much reviled American Homeowner’s Association, allegedly run democratically at smaller scales yet also hated by its participants. Because many do not participate, this leads to the self-selection of busy-bodies who annoy the nonparticipants. Could sortition be a solution to HOA hatred?

Continue reading →

Filed under: Sortition | 8 Comments »

Making Sortition Accountable

Posted on February 6, 2025 by johnhuang865

The typical sortition advocate looks at the theory of electoral accountable and state, well, electoral accountability is so bad it might as well not even be there. But that doesn’t let sortition off the hook. Even if electoral accountability is terrible, that doesn’t mean that lottocratic accountability is good.

Imagine a particularly corrupt society. Random selection rotates the citizens in. These citizens understand what lottery gives them, and they use their power to pay themselves exhorbitant salaries. Or they take bribes from patrons wishing to change legislation.

Even with multi-body sortition, given sufficient coordination between the multiple bodies, all participants could conspire to be corrupt and reward themselves across every panel and assembly.

Of course this is true with elections. Elected officials occasionally conspire to reward themselves across various checked and balanced institutions. If these elected officials are sufficiently discrete, then the voters are none the wiser and cannot apply appropriate electoral feedback.

I imagine a very coarse button that voters could press to hold lottocrats accountable, a sort of nuclear option similar to the practice of banishment.

Every year, voters could have an opportunity to punish a runaway lottocracy.

A referendum shall be held every year and ask, “Should the lottocrats be punished?”

  1. Should the lottocrats serving right now be punished?
  2. Should the lottocrats that served 1 year ago be punished?
  3. Should the lottocrats that served 2 years ago be punished?
  4. Should the lottocrats that served 3 years ago be punished?
  5. Should the lottocrats that served 4 years ago be punished?
Continue reading →

Filed under: Proposals, Sortition | 10 Comments »

A PhD Dissertation Written in favor of Democracy without Elections

Posted on December 15, 2024 by johnhuang865

I just stumbled across a PhD thesis recently published in November, 2024. It is entitled “The Rule of Ordinary People: The Case for a Sortition-Based Democracy without Elections,” by Eric Shoemaker, from the University of Toronto’s Philosophy Department. I have not read it yet but you can find the thesis here.

The abstract is:

In this dissertation, I challenge the orthodox position that elections are the democratic method for selecting political representatives. I reconstruct the concept of democracy shared broadly by democratic theorists to demonstrate that assemblies of randomly selected citizens are more democratic, as representatives of the public, than elected politicians. The primary arguments against sortition focus on the idea that the random selection of legislators is not democratic. Having argued that random selection is more democratic, I divide these criticisms into three different interpretations of why it is normatively significant that the members of the mini-public are not chosen by those whom the mini-public represents, and rebut each of them. In addition to defending the use of legislative mini-publics, I propose and defend institutional blueprints for a political executive and judiciary which put ultimate authority in the hands of randomly selected officials. In doing so I demonstrate that a representative democracy without elections is possible, and that because it would be more democratic, it is the model of democracy which we ought to strive for.

Filed under: Academia, Press, Sortition | Leave a comment »

How to Fund a Movement for Sortition?

Posted on November 18, 2024 by johnhuang865

I’d like to spark a discussion about everyone’s favorite topic: funding.

I’ve just written an article about some of the research in nonprofit funding here: How to Fund a Movement for Sortition. Unfortunately it’s nowhere near exhaustive as I am no expert in nonprofits nor social movements. The article goes over how most American 501c3 nonprofits are funded and what kind of strategies they pursue.

Filed under: Organizing, Sortition | 6 Comments »

How to answer the problem of accountability in sortition?

Posted on September 30, 2024 by johnhuang865

One of the most common criticisms against sortition is that there is no accountability, whereas election allegedly does have an accountability mechanism. What is the appropriate rebuttal to this criticism? I have tried to answer this poorly in a blog post here. I make up a matrix of hypothetical, idealized scenarios and assess elections vs sortition. I find that elections only achieve accountability contingent on high voter competence. When voter incompetence is assumed, I find that sortition will lead to better outcomes.

In other words, I find that sortition only makes sense in worlds where we do not have competent voters. Moreover, I find that sortition fails in worlds populated by solely Machiavellian personalities (maybe you could call these people homo economicus).

Voter incompetence is manifested as the inability of voters to control and create representative political parties. And their inability to wrest electoral power away from elites. Or their incompetence in participating in the right political primaries or the right elections. Or their inability to effectively compete against wealthy special interests. The public lacks the capacity to win the electoral contests.

Filed under: Sortition, Theory | Tagged: | 8 Comments »

A Modest Proposal for Peace in Israel and Palestine

Posted on November 17, 2023 by johnhuang865

As I hear about all the news in Israel and Gaza, I can’t help but think how sortition might help. What do people have to lose by trying something different after decades of failed peace talks? I’m just some rando on the internet but here is my modest proposal:

Create a Citizens Assembly for Peace

Construct an assembly of about 500 Israeli and Palestinian citizens. This assembly will not be strictly democratic; instead, it will be composed of 50% Israelis and 50% Palestinians. Delegates will be chosen by lottery and with some stratification if desired.

Require that all citizen delegates swear an oath of nonviolence while participating in the assembly. Any delegate that violently attacks another delegate will be thrown out and prosecuted.

Making a decision

  • To immediately ratify a proposal, at least 65% of the Israeli side and 65% of the Palestinian side must ratify the proposal.
  • To eventually ratify a proposal, at least 51% of the Israeli side and 51% of the Palestinian side must ratify the proposal. Proposals with only this double-majority support (51% and 51%) must be re-affirmed by a subsequent Citizens’ Assembly, with new delegates, called in one years time.

Participation from Governments and Authorities

Israeli government officials, military officials, Hamas officials, PLO officials, UN officials, etc. would be invited to participate with guarantees they will not be arrested or attacked at the peace talks. These officials will have NO agenda setting power and NO voting power. They will have the power to speak and be heard. They will have the power to submit proposals for consideration and submit amendments for consideration.

To enforce the peace, some international 3rd party will have to broker this participation as well as maintain security. Extreme security measures will need to be made to protect the delegates as they become targets for extremists.

A Requirement of Fraternization

Israeli and Palestinian participants are required to fraternize with one another. The delegates will be split into small group sessions with a random mix of the two sides of various proportions, with around 10 delegates per small group. Group compositions will be changing from time to time to encourage co-mingling with many different people. Multiple translators should be available for each small group to facilitate communication.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Proposals, Sortition | 2 Comments »

Independent Candidate Hugh McTavish for Governor of Minnesota puts “Jury Democracy” #1 on his political platform

Posted on September 14, 2022 by johnhuang865

Hugh McTavish is running as an independent for the governor of Minnesota. McTavish’s primary policy position is

Jury Democracy. Have statistically valid juries of 500+ randomly selected citizens make all important decisions of government after hearing full debate and information from all sides on a single issue or proposal.

McTavish elaborates:

What would be the characteristics of an ideal government?  It would produce decisions in this way:

  • Decisions made by every citizen, not just by a single dictator or president and not just by a small number of representatives or the elites of society.
  • Decisions made with full information and after careful consideration of all evidence and arguments and with respectful, open-minded discussion about the decision among the decision makers; not made based on snap emotion or limited and biased information.
  • Decisions made by consensus where possible and not be 51% imposing their will on 49%.

Obviously, our current system falls short of these goals.  But that is necessary, right?  We do not have time for everyone in society to stop their lives to carefully consider all the evidence on every issue that our government has to decide.

Does it have to be this way? Can we achieve a better government?

Yes, we can. The way is a new idea I developed that I call Jury Democracy.

Jury Democracy is a system of government of having large juries (about 500 to 2,000 persons) of randomly selected citizens, where the juries constitute statistically valid samples of the citizenry or voters, make policy decisions for government after seeing full informed debate on the policy, being given full information for and against the policy, and fully deliberating and discussing the decision with equally informed citizens in the same jury.

McTavish is running as an independent and faces an uphill battle. Incumbent Governor Tim Walz has a commanding 18-point lead over his Republican challenger Scott Jensen 51% to 33%. However, I welcome any campaign that can promote the idea of democracy by lottery.

Filed under: Elections, Proposals, Sortition | 2 Comments »

Does Power Corrupt or are the Corruptible Attracted to Power?

Posted on January 12, 2022 by johnhuang865

The “Crowded Bookcase” reviews Brian Klaas’s new book Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How it Changes Us. Ryan Boissonneault writes,

It’s a familiar story: A corrupt leader rises to power, is often willingly allowed to do so, and proceeds to leave a trail of destruction in his wake (it’s usually, but not always, a male). We see this time and time again throughout history and across the globe. But we never seem to learn. How can we account for this?

The conventional answer is to blame power itself, as in the proverbial saying “power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” But as political scientist Brian Klaas explains in his latest book, Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us, things are not so simple. While power can indeed corrupt, more often bad people are drawn to positions of power in the first place, and pursue these positions within systems that actually encourage bad behavior. To ensure that the right people are placed in power, we have to do more than focus only on individuals; we need to fix the underlying systems that allow them to thrive. As Klaas wrote:

“What if power doesn’t make us better or worse? What if power just attracts certain kinds of people—and those are precisely the ones who shouldn’t be in charge? Maybe those who most want power are the least suited to hold it. Perhaps those who crave power are corruptible.”

Check out Boissoneault’s blog for the rest of the review of the book, and spoiler alert – sortition is mentioned as a possible remedy.

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