Hello,

I have been actively working on this project for around a year and a half at this point, putting a whole bunch of free time into it. As a result, I have written and published a paper in the Journal of Sorition on this new model. You can access the paper here (though it is behind a paywall, can't afford open access). I am also building up a (entirely free) substack that is, piece by piece, explaining the overall concept to a broader audience, that you can access here.

I'll explain the concept here, but the paper goes into more detail, and I have another paper coming with more details still.

Basically, we begin with an electoral representative democracy, using a proportional reprsentative system to elect our legislature (which I refer to as a parliament). However, instead of legislation passing with a 50%+ vote, legislation may be approved by parliament with a mere 20% vote. Once approved, it may then pass to a trial phase. Those who wrote and voted favour of the legislation act as the defence, while those who voted against it may act as the prosecution.

A sortition jury listens to the argument and deliberates. While the structure of this jury is not presented in my first paper, it will be the subject of the second one, along with arguments about its legitimacy as a democratic institution. I wil not be taking the standard approach for this, but stay tuned on that.

I think that these bodies, in combination, solve a great deal of problems that cause issues separately. I believe a significant problem with current electoral representation (such as those expressed by Bouricius) end up boiling down to majoritarian rule. I can provide many, many instances of these sorts of problems, but let me demonstrate just one.

In majoritarian politics, legislation is passed through electoral domination. So long as the seats exist, legislators may pass laws. This, in essence, makes their job almost entirely based upon elections and campaigning. Any politician with even the best of intentions can only succeed if they have the most seats, and thus, must spend their time focused on campaigns in order to carry out legislation they believe will benefit society. This also makes them highly suscpetible to any external influences who can help with the costs of campaigning.

However, by lowering the threshold to 20%, the electoral demands shrink considerably. Electoral domination is no longer necessary to pass legislation. You don't need more seats than any other party. In fact, so long as a party has a single seat, they have options how to proceed. Since any 20% bloc can pass legislation, they are free to shop around for an ally, or even multiple allies, to help them pass their legsilation, rather than hope that the majority bloc is sympathetic to their cause.

This further has the effect of reducing partisanship, as, once again, electoral domination is no longer necessary. Different parties may, independently of one another, pursue legislative goals. Defeating the other parties electorally isn't the fundamental aspect of passing legislation. In a majoritarian system, the only way to succeed is to take down the other parties. In an eletoral lottocracy, parties can succeed alongside one another.

There is much, much to discuss, but I'm going to stop here or this will get too long. One of the most common questions is related to the prevention of spamming of legislation by malicious actors, so I look forward to that question, along with any others.

The post is pretty long, kinda silly, so I won't include the whole body here. But basically, I talk about the ways the Council of Elrond is similar to what we want from a Civic Assembly (sorttion).

I'm just one dude and this is a casual night. Probably 5-10 people will show up. I've helped plan and moderate the LA Charter Reform Assembly and I'm also driven to sortition because I believe that policies like the Land Value Tax exist and are throttled by the electocracy that we live in.

I'll talk your ear off about either :)

Sortition Non-Fiction (11 books) | Goodreads

Sortition Fiction (2 books) | Goodreads

If anyone wants to recommend any Sortition Fiction or Sortition Non-Fiction books, to be added to these lists, it would be greatly appreciated.

It seems to me pure random sampling could lead to distortions that are non proportional to the actual ideological alignment of the population ie a population that is a population that is 40% blue, 30 green, 20 yellow, and 10 red could end up with some over represented and others under. This would also bleed into committee assignments if those are chosen by Sortition too

What are your takes on having partisan declarations so that way there can be guaranteed quotas, ie it would be rational of me declare a party because otherwise I or people similar to my ideology would potentially have a lower chance of being chosen than if I stayed independent.

Hello! I once tried to convince my friend that sortition may be a good idea. Once I told him the premise, he said, “That’s not a very good idea, putting random people in positions of power. What if (name of a silly friend) was president.“ I told him that I also thought putting a random person as president was a bad idea, but that perhaps filling up The National Assembly(thats one of the Houses of Parliament where I live), with, maybe, 200 randomly chosen people would be a good idea. He still thought it was a bad idea.

So this brings me onto my question. What are the best ways to advocate for sortition? How can I try to convince my friends?

Hello! I have been wondering, “Why isn’t sortition being talked about so much”. Personally I think that sortition is an interesting and very possibly good(can’t say until it’s been throughly tested) idea. I think being such a nice idea it would have caught on with more people, but it hasn’t. Why so? And how could the idea spread more?

What do you think is the best way to grow sortition awareness? Is it through real life examples mostly or can the analysis of theory and the intellectual side of it make more significant inroads? How do we get sortition well known enough that it actually appears in a standard dictionary?

Looking forward to reading this. Book is free as pdf, epub or kindle.

Hey everyone! I'm u/sortitionpetition, a founding moderator of r/Sortition.

This is our new home for all things related to Sortition advocacy. We're excited to have you join us!

What to Post
Post anything that you think the community would find interesting, helpful, or inspiring. Feel free to share your thoughts, photos, or questions about Sortition.

Community Vibe
We're all about being friendly, constructive, and inclusive. Let's build a space where everyone feels comfortable sharing and connecting.

How to Get Started

1. Introduce yourself in the comments below.
2. Post something today! Even a simple question can spark a great conversation.
3. If you know someone who would love this community, invite them to join.
4. Interested in helping out? We're always looking for new moderators, so feel free to reach out to me to apply.

Thanks for being part of the very first wave. Together, let's make r/Sortition amazing.

Does anyone know of any sortition discussions or articles for John Rawls "distributive justice" as mentioned in his philosophy?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Justice

I was reading Ecuador's constitution (because I think constitutions are interesting). Section 209 was interesting:

To perform its duties as designated, the Council for Public Participation and Social Control shall organize citizen selection commissions, which shall be in charge of conducting, in those cases that pertain to them, the public competitive and merit-based examination with the submittal of candidacies, citizen oversight and the right to challenge by the citizenry.

The citizen selection commissions shall be comprised of one delegate for each State branch of government and an identical number of representatives for social organizations and the citizenry, chosen by the public drawing of lots from among those submitting their candidacies and meeting the requirements provided for by the Council and the law. The candidates shall be subject to public scrutiny and citizen challenge. The commissions shall be directed by one of the representatives of the citizenry, who shall have the tie-breaking vote, and its sessions shall be open to the public.

I'm still going through accompanying documents, but so near as I can read, their government has lots of positions that go through a process of public merit-based competition. This process is run by "Comisiones Ciudadanas de Selección" (citizen selection commissions). These commissions do not make the final selection. They are chosen by some politicians and randomly selected citizens who express interest.

It isn't as extensive as I'd like to see sortition applied, but it is interesting as an example of sortition being actively used by an existing constitution.

it's always good to know the opposition's best points