“A people’s grand jury” – a possible model for the application of sortition

Posted on January 9, 2015 by Yoram Gat

Glen Ford writes in Black Agenda Report:

A Black People’s Grand Jury in St. Louis, Missouri, this weekend delivered a “true bill of indictment” for first degree murder against former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in the death of Black teenager Michael Brown. Black people “can and must take matters into our own hands,” said Omali Yeshitela, one of four prosecutors that presented evidence[.]

The 12 jurors, all of them from greater St. Louis, spent January 3rd and 4th reviewing some of the same evidence presented by county prosecutor Bob McCulloch to the mostly white grand jury that failed to indict Wilson, in November.

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Filed under: Applications, Juries, Proposals | 16 Comments »

2014 review – sortition-related events

Posted on December 29, 2014 by Yoram Gat

Tomas Mancebo highlighted the proposals for using sortition that were part of the constitutional process at Podemos – a party which emerged this year as a highly popular alternative to the established parties in Spain.

Adam Cronkright wrote about his work with Democracy In Practice in Bolivia applying sortition to student governments.

Together with Tomas, I find the fact that sortition was relatively prominently proposed and discussed (although ultimately rejected) as part of the power structure within Podemos as the most significant sortition-related event of 2014.

Other 2014 sortition-related events of significance were:

  • Russell Brand’s anti-electoral message, although originally announced in 2013, continued to resonate and generate largely outraged responses throughout 2014.
  • The idea of sortition continued to be actively discussed in French. A new French movie – J’ai pas voté – featured a string of critics of electoralism and sortition advocates. Etienne Chouard and David Van Reybrouck joined forces in April for a conference called “The Tired Democracy”.
  • While Chouard’s more militant message seems to be limited to French media, Van Reybrouck’s softer message made it through the language barrier and was featured on the BBC.
  • An empirical study by Gilens and Page indicating that median (as measure by income) public opinion has very little effect on policy in the U.S. got significant media attention. Another study, by Norton and Kiatpongsan, showing that there is little association between people’s expectations (and perceptions) about inequality and reality was widely discussed as well.
  • Ever eager to find ways to legitimize itself, established power made exploratory maneuvers to exploit the idea of sortition.

Happy new year and best wishes to all!

Filed under: Academia, Elections, Opinion polling, Press, Sortition | 21 Comments »

2014 review – statistics

Posted on December 28, 2014 by Yoram Gat

Below are some statistics about the fifth year of Equality-by-Lot. Comparable numbers for last year can be found here.

2014 Page views Posts Comments
Jan 2,038 11 179
Feb 2,370 8 110
Mar 1,975 7 76
Apr 2,890 13 269
May 2,956 5 265
June 2,403 8 119
July 2,552 14 205
Aug 1,950 3 71
Sept 2,022 8 91
Oct 2,511 10 105
Nov 2,490 8 108
Dec (to 28th) 2,318 10 183
Total 28,475 105 1,781

Note that page views do not include visits by logged-in contributors – the wordpress system does not count those visits.

Posts were made by 11 authors during 2014. (There were, of course, many other authors quoted and linked to.)

There are currently 188 email and WordPress followers of this blog. In addition there are 83 Twitter followers (@Klerotarian) and 50 Facebook followers.

Searching for “distribution by lot” (with quotes) using Google returns Equality-by-Lot as the second result (out of “about 20,600 results”), as well as the third result. Searching for “sortition” returns Equality-by-Lot as the 5th result (out of “about 73,900 results”).

Filed under: Distribution by lot, meta, Sortition | 3 Comments »

“The whole concept of democracy rests on the same premises that are used as objections to the real practice of democracy”

Posted on December 28, 2014 by Yoram Gat

Some highlights from another online discussion of sortition:

Sortition or selection by lot was used in ancient Greece and is currently used to form juries. My question is whether this should be extended to choose our local councillors and state politicians.

Absolutely! The best possible government is one that has to live with its own decisions, rather than handing decisions down for others to carry out, pay for and suffer the consequences, while the rules themselves are exempt. If all citizens may, at any time, be called upon to administer the state, it becomes a duty of all citizens, rather than the privilege of a few.

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Filed under: Sortition | 40 Comments »

Call for 2014 review input and award nominations

Posted on December 19, 2014 by Yoram Gat

As in the past years (2013, 2012, 2011, 2010), I would like to create a post or two summarizing the sortition- and distribution-by-lot-related developments of the year and the activity here on Equality-by-Lot.

Please use the comments to give your input on what you think are the most mention-worthy events or essays of the past year.

This year I had the idea of initiating a yearly award for the most notable sortition-related article, essay or activity (or maybe a few awards covering a few categories). The award I am thinking of is mostly honorary rather than material (with maybe a token gift). Comments regarding the award(s) idea and nominations are also hereby solicited.

Filed under: Distribution by lot, meta, Sortition | 8 Comments »

Malkin: Reviving sortition, first within the parties

Posted on December 13, 2014 by Yoram Gat

Elections in Israel are in the offing again. Prof. Irad Malkin, a professor of Ancient History in Tel Aviv University and winner of the 2014 Israel Prize for history, again offers sortition to the readers of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz:

Lottery instead of voting, like in Athens

In these days, in which parties are preparing for elections, especially in view of the increase of the electoral threshold, an exhausting process of political fighting, deals, backstabbing and ideological infighting can be expected. Even if a new party is formed and wins seats in the Knesset, residues of bitterness and animosity that have accumulated during the formation struggle will remain. This problem can be solved – greatly shortening the process and dissolving the conflicts in advance – by adopting a mechanism that was used in ancient Athens, the city that gave us democracy.

In the Athenian democracy people were selected by lottery to most positions in the executive, religious and judicial organization. […] The difference between oligrachy and democracy, say Aristotle, is that oligarchy has elections while democracy has the lottery.

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Filed under: Academia, Athens, Elections, History, Participation, Press, Proposals, Sortition | Tagged: , , | 6 Comments »

Larken Rose: Ya Gotta Vote!

Posted on December 5, 2014 by Yoram Gat

Filed under: Elections | 31 Comments »

Podemos

Posted on December 2, 2014 by Yoram Gat

A new Spanish political party called “Podemos” (“we can”) has seen meteoric growth in public support according to opinion polls. According to some polls, it has now surpassed in popularity the two major Spanish parties.

Its founding manifesto (a somewhat awkward translation here) presents Podemos as an outgrowth of the 2011 “Indignados” protests and the unrepresentative nature of the existing system:

Turning outrage into political change

Just as with other moments in history, we see today a European continent submerged in perplexity. Whilst the majorities look back with nostalgia on the past that is lost, certain powerful minorities, with no criterion other than their own survival, show that enrichment is their flag and impunity their horizon. Never in Europe have there been so many people discontented with their loss of rights, and, at the same time, so few prospects for channeling this outrage through a voting option that excites while at the same time, shows the capacity to represent the majorities under attack and a capacity for committed and efficient administration that makes the best possible options become real. Many find it intolerable that in the greatest crisis in the system since the crash of 1929, those forces that claim to be progressive are at their weakest point, thereby condemning the majorities in our countries to a kind of melancholy that leads to resignation and political depression. [Excerpted from the translation linked above with my touch ups.]

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Filed under: Academia, Applications, Ballot measures, Elections, Opinion polling, Participation, Press, Proposals, Sortition | Tagged: | 6 Comments »

Peter Jones: The lesson of Athens

Posted on November 14, 2014 by Yoram Gat

Peter Jones writes in The Spectator about the differences between the Athenian system the modern electoralist system. Unfortunately, while Jones makes some very valid points, his description of the Athenian system elides its most important democratic institute, sortition, and his reform proposals go down the standard mistaken route of emphasizing mass participation:

The lesson of Athens: to make people care about politics, give them real power

We don’t, as far as the Greeks are concerned, really do politics; we just elect people to do it for us

Voters explain their apathy about politics on the grounds that the politicians do not understand them. No surprise there, an ancient Greek would say, since the electorate does not actually do politics. It simply elects politicians who do, thereby cutting out the voters almost entirely.

But the contrast with 5th and 4th century bc Athens does not simply consist in the fact that all decisions, both political and legal, were made by the Athenian citizen body meeting every week in Assembly. As Pericles’ Funeral Speech (430 bc) famously demonstrates, what is so striking about Athens is that the nature of the world’s first (and last) genuine democracy and the importance of preserving it were the subject of constant public debate.

[W]ho is making the case for our system? If no one, why not? Is it because, like the EU, it needs reform? And if so, how? (Forget the Lords: only Parliament counts.) Consider, for example, the Scots’ referendum. People were actually doing politics then, because they made the decision. Hence the huge turnout. Is there a hint there? After all, every politician applauded. Or was it just crocodile applause? Is it the politicians at fault, not the system?

Filed under: Athens, History, Participation, Press, Sortition | Tagged: , | 32 Comments »

Schulson: Why not select Congress by lottery?

Posted on November 9, 2014 by Yoram Gat

Michael Schulson has published an article about sortition in The Daily Beast. Schulson’s presentation is short but hits several important notes. It is certainly a good candidate for being the proverbial good three-minute introduction to sortition.

Is It Time to Take a Chance on Random Representatives?

If you’re looking for an unrepresentative group of Americans, the House of Representatives isn’t a bad place to start. Its members are disproportionately old and white. More than 80 percent of them are men. They spend around four hours per day on the phone, asking people for money. Unlike most other telemarketers, they have a median net worth of almost $900,000. More than a third of them hold law degrees.

Last Tuesday, not much changed. Once again, the American people went to the polls and elected a group of people who, in aggregate, only vaguely resemble the American people.

The problem isn’t new. A representative assembly, John Adams wrote in 1776, “should be in miniature an exact portrait of the people at large.” (By “people,” of course, he meant “white men”). But by the 1780s, when Anti-Federalists challenged the young Constitution, a big part of their concern was that “representation as provided for in the Constitution would be skewed in favor of the most prosperous and prominent classes,” writes the political scholar Bernard Manin.

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Filed under: Athens, History, Press, Sortition | Tagged: , , , , | 91 Comments »

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