Do democracy better
with sortition
Politics sucks. Let's fix it.
People are disengaged with politics. Trust in democracy, particularly amongst the young, has plummeted. People feel their views aren't represented, government doesn't care about their needs, and our political and economic systems are unfairly geared towards the rich and powerful.
All true. But enough doom and gloom. We can easily fix those issues with sortition.
Sortition is using random selection to populate a citizens' assembly, parliament, or congress with a representative sample of the population, tasked with making decisions in an informed, calm, and deliberative manner.
Democracy should be:
Current system
Sortition system
Representative
Parliaments or Congress should reflect the diversity of the population.
Current system
Largely old, white, rich, men in power.
Most groups in society aren't truly represented.
Sortition system
Representative samples of the population by default.
The country in miniature.
All groups get authentic representation.
Responsive
National agenda set by the people. Responds to all citizens wants and needs.
Current system
Agenda set by small portion of population.
Heavily influenced by vested interests and media.
Sortition system
Agenda set by group representing entire population.
Everyone is free to propose, debate, and prioritise issues that are important to them.
Multi-body sortition specifically creates bodies separate from government, tasked solely with setting topics for legislation.
Fair
Low barriers to serve in politics. Rules are set impartially.
Current system
Standing for, and obtaining, political office is difficult, expensive, biased, and time consuming.
Politicians set the rules that govern themselves. Inmates run the asylum.
Sortition system
Standing for political office is as easy as nominating yourself. Randomly selecting politicians is cheap, quick, unbiased, and easy.
Multi-body sortition specifically creates bodies for impartially setting rules and overseeing political complaints and behaviour.
If democracy is the least worst form of government, then sortition is the least worst form of democracy.
Do democracy better
Enough doom and gloom. Let’s fix politics with sortition. We’re already using it, we just need more.