(Illustration from Puck Magazine entitled “Dragon Meat” showing “The New Congressman” heading towards a capitol building guarded by a dragon labelled “Special Privilege”)
We don't appear to have a government of, by, and for us. We appear to have a powerful, unaccountable ruling class. Why is that the case?
I want to talk to you about an explanation that questions one of the most fundamental assumptions we have about democracy. What if elections aren't actually democratic?
That sounds crazy, but how many people you know could stop their working or caregiving responsibilities to run or serve in office? Of those, how many would want to expose themselves and their families to public scrutiny to prove that they're “the best”? Of that group, who has access to enough money to make themselves known to the public and to be seen as “viable”?
Elections systematically weed out most humble people, working people, and caregivers—and attract a disproportionate number of sociopaths, narcissists, special interests, and people who can make money in their sleep.
This isn't just to bash on politicians. Some are earnestly fighting for what they believe will be a better world, but our laws don't reflect the best democratic consensus politicians could come up with. Our laws reflect the economic interests of those with the best chances of winning elections.
Unfortunately for all of us, that doesn't actually mean the human beings sitting in office.
In order to keep their jobs, politicians have to answer to the donor class. The potential funders with the most money have the most influence. So corporations - unconscious amoral collections of profit incentives - end up with the most power. Elections have resulted in us humans being outcompeted for control of our own governments.
Environmental crises, unaffordable housing and healthcare, and unjust taxation, banking, and employment are all consequences of having our political system controlled by entities who disproportionately benefit from those problems.
So, if elections keep power concentrated among those who already have it, how can we get a government that gives everyone a fair chance?
That phrase “fair chance” is key. The answer is chance itself - random selection - sortition. We can take representative random samples of the public—give them the resources they need—and then let them take short turns making the decisions.
Sortition has some important advantages over elections. No political parties. No gerrymandering. No campaign finance. No career politicians.
Instead of selecting for partisan hardliners that have to maintain ideological purity, through random selection we would get people willing to listen and change their minds.
Instead of a legislature of mostly old, white, wealthy, male businessman and lawyers, with large enough random samples, we would get groups of decision makers that look like all of us. People from all sorts of backgrounds, exactly in proportion to the American public.
From tasting soups to conducting scientific research, we use representative random samples for a reason: they work. And we know random samples work for governing too.
For thousands of years, sortition was considered to be the way to scale democracy. Ancient Athens used sortition as their primary means of self-government, not elections or direct democracy.
Aristotle is quoted as saying “It is accepted as democratic when public offices are allocated by lot; and as oligarchic when they are filled by election.”
We’ve used sortition in our juries to make life and death decisions for centuries. Sortition has been used in citizens' assemblies around the world to decide some of the most complicated and divisive political issues.
Sortition consistently produces evidence-based governance to achieve stability and general wellbeing, just like we would expect a coherent democracy would.
Sortition is the way to get a government “of, by, and for” the people anytime there are too many decisions or too many people for a majority of us to reach informed agreement about what to do.
“But,” you say, “what if we randomly select an incompetent or terrible person to be president?
Well, we wouldn't use random selection to pick someone for an executive role that requires special knowledge or skills. We would use random selection to assemble groups that could decide what goals our executives should be working on and to ensure that they remain accountable to us.
It makes sense to delegate technical decisions to experts, like delegating flying a plane to a pilot.
But the passengers, not the pilot, should decide what the destination is.
Once the people decide on a goal, they can hire executives to get that work done.
For example, we could have large juries of regular people interview and hire experts to run each of the major departments according to our instructions and then have new juries audit those experts’ performances on a regular basis to decide whether to replace them.
The task of holding powerful individuals accountable seems far better suited to representative random samples of people equipped with the time, resources, and data to perform thorough, regularly scheduled reviews, than to the general electorate, composed of individuals with many competing priorities and little hope of personally deciding the outcome, voting only every few years.
“But I don't want to give up my vote to randomly selected people”
You wouldn't have to.
Right now the wealthy donor class pretty much gets to decide what candidates and ballot initiatives you even get the chance to vote for. With sortition we could put the people over the donor class and politicians. In addition to holding executives accountable and passing laws themselves, we could use sortition bodies to write the ballot initiatives and vet the candidates that the rest of us get to vote on. The range of debate would finally be up to people like us, not just our bosses, our landlords, and big corporations.
We don't need to design a whole new government from scratch or change everything all at once. We just need to change who fundamentally has power over the system.
It's a huge conflict of interest to give politicians the exclusive power to rewrite the rules that give them power.
We need to use sortition to give us, the governed, the right to NOT consent to our government: the exclusive power to change our constitutions as we see fit over time.
“Sortition seems good,” you say, "but it's so far-fetched.”
Well, let's work through the most often repeated alternative strategies.
What if we held elections on Saturdays, required everyone to vote, and used Ranked choice voting?
Australia already does all of these things and, while their government is more functional than ours, they still have significant political problems.
The Australian people do not trust their politicians.
The 2025 Australian Constitutional Values Survey found that among a representative sample of over 7,000 Australians, only 16% had any trust in politicians and only 1/3 said they had trust in the Australian system of government as a whole.
Bernie Sanders and AOC seem to think the solution is getting more working-class people to run.
But why don't you run?
Probably because you have to work.
Maybe because you have kids or elderly family members that rely on you to care for them.
But definitely because you rightly assume that unless you're a wealthy, well known person that can raise a lot of money, the experience would most likely be an expensive, confrontational, potentially embarrassing, massive waste of your time.
Well what if we publicly funded elections?
Unless we're also willing to pay for candidates’ living expenses and dependent care, workers and caregivers still wouldn't be able to run.
Since we couldn't afford to have everyone stop working and run for office, how would we decide who to give funding to? If we base it off of popularity or name recognition (both of which can be paid for), we're right back where we started: rule by the rich.
This also wouldn't address the problem that elections attract a disproportionate number of people with sociopathic and narcissistic traits while repelling most humble people, those who avoid conflict, and those who like to keep to themselves.
Few people are fit to hold power over others and those who are drawn to the opportunity are often the least fit to do so.
Okay, so elections really are problematic.
What if we used technology to enable direct democracy?
Unless regular people could understand and audit the technology, the people with the real power would be the ones who could write the code.
Putting technology to the side, even if we could maintain a perfectly transparent and fair direct democracy system, would you have time to become informed on every single issue? Let's say you could. As a single vote among millions, would all that work be a good use of your time knowing that you can't force other people to become as informed as you’ve become? Might your limited time on this earth be better spent helping your family or enjoying the company of the people you love?
This is the problem of rational ignorance and it comes up anytime the work of becoming informed significantly outweighs the benefits of being informed. It doesn't make sense for people to spend time deeply researching candidates if they have minimal or no influence on the outcome. So they won't become informed. They will trust their chosen special interest-funded media outlets and influencers to do the work of deciding how to vote for them. This same problem applies to ideas like liquid democracy, which shifts the responsibility for paying attention and understanding away from the people themselves.
What if we only allowed educated people or experts to vote?
If a test determines whether people get to vote, then the people with the real power are the ones who get to write the test.
The people who have the opportunity and motivation to pass the test don't necessarily represent everyone who should get a say.
If we believe in democracy, the whole proposition of only allowing experts to vote is backwards. Instead of taking power from the people who should have the information, we can give the people who should have the power the information they need.
Well since we can't inform every single person about every single issue, what if we gave samples of the people the opportunity and motivation to become informed on a single issue and then let them decide that issue?
That’s sortition.
"But how can we ensure randomly selected people act in the best interests of all of us?"
We can do this in several ways...
Maintaining and enforcing anti-corruption rules, like we already do for juries
Ensuring every person has an equal chance of being selected and an equal opportunity to serve, by paying them a reasonable wage, paying for necessary dependent care, and requiring that employers give them time off, just like for jury duty
Ensuring people only serve for enough time to make an informed decision on a single question to prevent them from being distorted by prolonged distinction and power
Using decision-making techniques designed to reach the greatest consensus possible
Dividing decision-making functions by drawing different, short-term, random samples for: deciding the rules, setting the agenda, crafting policy proposals, deciding whether those proposals become law, and holding executive staff accountable
Ensuring the sample sizes for the final steps of any decision (i.e. passing important laws or hiring key executives) are large enough to be representative of the general population
“Okay! But knowing about sortition won't do us any good unless there's a chance to actually make it real.”
There are paths to make this real, but obviously, this kind of change will be extremely difficult to achieve.
That being said, right now we the people are not in charge, and until we fix that fundamental problem we'll have to keep fighting the same types of uphill battles over and over again. So, we must find a way.
We have been told that we are facing a future of climate-fueled mass migration, conflict, and death where technology will increasingly raise the stakes of war, erode our privacy, and strip away the bargaining power of workers.
Let's say all of that's true, who do we want deciding how we navigate those challenges?
Elite donors and politicians who benefit from keeping things as they are?
Privileged revolutionaries willing to cause some collateral damage?
Or “We the People” who must live with the consequences?
If you agree that governments should be controlled by all the people who must live under them, not just the ruling class, here’s how you can help…
Talk with people about sortition. Join Democracy Without Elections. Read “Democracy Without Politicians” by Terry Bouricius or similar books. Consider reading as a group or buying copies for libraries. If everyone realized that elections serve elites, not regular people, and that there is a better alternative, we would be most of the way to our goal.
Advocate for the use of sortition in local government or organizations you are a part of so they get input from all types of people, not just those with the most motivation or time. This is a great way to familiarize people with the idea of sortition and to develop the expertise to attempt even more ambitious implementations.
Work to convince activist groups that sortition is the fundamental reform that will make all other worthwhile reforms easier. Organize activists to demand issues be resolved with sortition. Politicians are more able to ignore calls for change when activists are divided on what solutions to try and those who benefit from the status quo are united in preventing change. If we collectively demand that decisions be made using sortition, it will increase the likelihood we get beneficial changes, it will give the resulting policies more legitimacy, and it will spread the word about how we should scale democracy.
Work within our political system to bypass politicians and give the people the fundamental power over their governments. Focus on constitutional reform pathways. Help to refine model legislation. Pressure current politicians to introduce and pass sortition legislation. When that fails, use ballot initiatives and work to find people with the opportunity to run who are willing to make this their mission. Use unconventional tactics to get those people elected, like encouraging them to run as the dominant party, regardless of their ideology, in order to benefit from vote splitting in the primaries: unconventional candidates have an outsized chance of winning against crowded fields in first-past-the-post, pick-one elections. Mobilize people to support sortition candidates in the primaries, since a smaller number of votes can change primary outcomes and set up general election victories or major party fractures. Convert as many people as possible to be single issue sortition voters.
In case political elites subvert the process, help build local resources to support people's basic needs during demonstrations.
Join us at democracywithoutelections.org
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