Seminar: CAs instead of elections?

Posted on March 11, 2023 by Owen Shaffer

Democracy Without Elections is sponsoring a seminar titled “Citizens’ Assemblies and Lottery Selection as the Democratic Alternative to Elections.” It will be led by Terry Bouricius who, along with David Schecter, developed the nested assemblies model that was the basis for their implementation in the Ostbelgien region of Belgium. Topics include:

  • Why elections don’t work
  • History of democratic lotteries (sortition)
  • Why replacing elections with lotteries does not work
  • Transition possibilities from elections to lotteries
  • Using lotteries in boards, co-ops, condo associations, etc.

In this 4 hour seminar, you can review what you know and deepen your knowledge. Invite other folks who may be interested!

It will be held on Saturday 8 April at 12:30pm Eastern, 9:30 am Pacific, 6:30 pm Central Europe. Sign up here in advance.

Filed under: Elections, meeting, Sortition | 4 Comments »

Using sortition to select Board Directors

Posted on March 5, 2023 by Owen Shaffer

Democracy Without Elections uses sortition to select all directors of its governing board since the beginning, December 2020. Are there any other boards that exclusively use sortition? Is sortition used to choose members of governing bodies in nonprofits, education or business anywhere else? Are there examples of using sortition to select some members?

Filed under: Applications, Sortition | Tagged: , | 4 Comments »

Metaverse vs. Democracy

Posted on February 18, 2023 by Owen Shaffer

I’ve published an article that explores the current and future challenge that technology and the metaverse brings to elections. I believe I’m the first to explore the connection. I would appreciate any comments and suggestions, as well as collaborators in developing a more in-depth piece.

The in-depth piece would likely have 4 major perspectives:

  • psychology & emotions
  • history & current practices in US elections (possibly looking internationally?)
  • technology & the metaverse
  • introduction to CAs, culminating in nested CAs

Filed under: Elections, Proposals, Sortition | 11 Comments »

Nested Assemblies

Posted on February 9, 2023 by Owen Shaffer

You know… the Ostbelgien Model. Or what it was first named by Terry Bouricius a decade ago: Multi-body Sortition.

For a movement to grow, it needs names of important terms that are more descriptive of the concept behind it so that it is easier for newbies to learn. If the term can serve as an advance organizer, even better. I think we need to adopt the best term possible before less-than-optimal terms take hold.

Terry and I have been bouncing around terms, and the best so far seems to be Nested Assemblies. Think Russian dolls that nest one inside another. Or nested structures in computer science.

Are there better terms?

Filed under: Proposals, Sortition | 11 Comments »

Promoting Citizens’ Assemblies

Posted on January 8, 2023 by Owen Shaffer

Democracy Without Elections and Healthy Democracy have teamed up to provide a new seminar titled “Building Political Will for Lottery-Selected Panels in Your Community – A How-To Guide.”

The seminar will be led by Linn Davis on Zoom over two Saturdays: 11 and 25 February. Click here to reserve your spot.

Filed under: Academia, meeting, Sortition | 3 Comments »

What’s in a Name?

Posted on November 22, 2022 by Owen Shaffer

Many of us are part of a movement that melds three ideas: sortition, deliberation and democracy. But we don’t have a widely-accepted name for our movement.

Deliberative democracy could be that term. However, it has a major deficiency: outside our movement it only means two of our three central tenets. I did not find any mention of the terms lottery or sortition in the entry for deliberative democracy in Britannica, Wikipedia or The Free Dictionary. In other words, the references that many people consult to learn about the topic don’t reflect our movement.

Is there an effort to make changes to popular reference sources? Is deliberative democracy the best term for our movement? Should the term deliberative democracy embrace sortition?

Filed under: Deliberation, Sortition | 66 Comments »

The End of Elections?

Posted on April 27, 2022 by Owen Shaffer

The convergence of advances in technology and research in emotions coupled to the drive to control the outcomes of elections is exposing a major problem in the United States, and possibly elsewhere. In this article I explain the problem and offer a familiar solution: citizens’ assemblies. Although not covered in the article, it indirectly offers a strong reason why our movement is running out of time.

We are moving toward a world where enough personally identifiable emotion data is becoming available to profile and subtly shape the thinking of a wide range of voters, which would give control of the outcomes of elections to those who own our data. This election singularity is almost invisible and, on the individual level, easily dismissed with a claim that “I won’t be influenced in this way.”

Filed under: Elections, Sortition | 1 Comment »

Mock Citizens’ Assembly

Posted on December 31, 2021 by Owen Shaffer

Want to experience a Citizens’ Assembly from the inside? Democracy Without Elections has teamed with Healthy Democracy and the Building a New Reality Foundation to put you in the middle of one!

Healthy Democracy will run a Mock Citizens’ Assembly that will be very close to the real thing. You can experience every part of a Citizens’ Assembly except that there would be no democratic lottery (sortition) to choose participants, a final report would not be written and the experience will be more compressed. There is no lottery as folks are self-selected because they want to experience a Citizens’ Assembly from the inside.

A Citizens’ Assembly must have an issue to settle, and ours will identify the best direction for our movement. Assuming only one direction could be supported at this time, should we focus on

  • using citizens’ assemblies to make recommendations to elected bodies, or
  • replacing legislators with citizens chosen by lottery

The cost for this experience is set at 3 self-selected levels: US$49, $89, $119. Pay what you can afford. If $49 is too much, contact us and we will work something out. Precocious 13 – 18 year olds are free with a paying adult.

Wonder what it would be like to be a facilitator at a Citizens’ Assembly (CA)? You can try it out as well! While it does not prepare you to be a professional facilitator, a special training session will happen prior to the Mock CA. A facilitator focuses on the meeting process and how the group is working, but does not contribute to the actual discussion. Participants in that training session will serve as novice facilitators during the Mock CA. Depending on the numbers, you would be a facilitator at times and a participant in the Mock CA. The cost for both the facilitator training and the Mock CA is, again, at 3 self-selected levels: US$99, $179, $229.

It all starts in February, and will be on Zoom on these dates:

  • February 19 (facilitator ‘training’)
  • February 26 and March 5 (Mock CA)

The times for each Saturday session are are set to include interested people in Europe, Africa, and across North and South America. All times are pegged to the United States Pacific Standard Time, so please verify the time in your own area.

  • Hawaii time: 7 – 9am, 10 – 12pm
  • Pacific US time: 9 – 11am, 12 – 2pm
  • Eastern US time: 12 – 2pm, 3 – 5pm
  • United Kingdom, Portugal, Ghana: 5 – 7pm, 8 – 10pm
  • Central Europe, Tunisia: 6 – 8pm, 9 – 11pm

There are limited spaces; click here to sign up! Contact me if you have questions.

Owen Shaffer

01shaffer@gmail.com

Democracy Without Elections

Democracy Without Elections is a U.S. 501(c)3 registered nonprofit organization.

Filed under: Action, Experiments, Sortition | Tagged: , , | 2 Comments »

Yuval Harari on sortition?

Posted on September 5, 2021 by Owen Shaffer

“If you want power, at some point you will have to spread fictions. If you want to know the truth about the world, at some point you will have to renounce power.” Yuval Harari in 21 Lessons for the 21st Century.

Citizens’ assemblies are much more about truth, and not power. Harari seems to present a lot of reasons why we need CAs, but never mentions them. Has there ever been a connection between him and sortition / CAs?

Filed under: Academia, History, Sortition | 12 Comments »

Sortition in Government Series

Posted on December 10, 2020 by Owen Shaffer

Terry Bouricius will be leading a series of presentations on applying sortition to government at the next several monthly meetings of Democracy Without Elections, formerly the United States Chapter of the Sortition Foundation. The next monthly meeting will be held online on Tuesday 15 December at 9pm Eastern, 6 Pacific (US time). Terry’s topic is “Underlying legitimacy of election vs. sortition,” and further described as…

“Both election and sortition claim to be representative forms of democracy, but they have very different historic roots and very different bases for legitimacy. The different methods are likely to deliver very different policy outcomes as well. Law making using sortition dates back thousands of years, and is recently undergoing a resurgence.”

The meeting includes reports from Interest Groups and from our new Board of Directors. Contact Owen for access to the meeting.

Future online meeting presentations in this series will include discussions on

  • Why elections are a bad tool for running a democracy
  • Sortition representation and accountability
  • Why having one chamber elected and one chamber by sortition is problematic
  • How to organize law-making with sortition
  • Aspects of Sortition: impartiality, anti-corruption, representativeness, diversity benefits
  • Sortition role in the executive branch
  • Transition strategies to sortition democracy

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

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