r/Lottocracy

What's your guys thoughts on election by jury, where the electoral body is chosen by sortition and then they deliberate before voting on candidates.

You eliminate the campaign and money bias inherent in general elections, and gain deliberation and knowldge within the electorate.

Every candidate may be interviewed by the jury with no advantage based on financial backing.

It could also make elections cheaper.

How would it compare to general elections and direct sortition or even direct democracy.

The NY Times ghosted me. Probably an automated ghost, as I did get an automated response that my letter had been received, along with a promise, “(You will receive an auto-reply only once every four days.)”

Anyway, that’s ok, Mr. Times. I figured you were out of my league, but sometimes, you gotta make your move, if only for the story to tell afterwards. Here’s my story (that is, I knew I could just share my letter here on Substack, in the very likely event that it was not published by the New York Times):

Note: They have a very strict 200 word limit for letters-to-the-editor.

>Max Clark
Los Angeles, CA
(***) ***-****

>I’m writing in response to Hélène Landemore’s article, “No Shy Person Left Behind”. The article focused on the growing movement of citizens’ assemblies, “groups of ordinary people, selected by lottery, who come together to learn about a public issue, hear from experts and advocacy groups, deliberate with one another and make recommendations.” I volunteer with Public Democracy LA and we also advocate for citizens’ assemblies. We are proud of the LA Charter Assembly we helped facilitate, but here’s our dirty secret: we are activist refugees.

>Unfamiliar policies, or those without appeal to voting blocs, are sidelined by politicians and parties who prioritize electoral success above all else. Citizens’ assemblies bypass this systemic problem with elections.

>In my case, advocacy for Henry George’s Land Value Tax (LVT) has been ineffective. We are living on a Monopoly board. Ownership of Boardwalk and Park Place enables landlords to siphon the wealth of laborers. The Land Value Tax reclaims their wages.

>Most economists support the LVT, yet most politicians ignore it. This is why I advocate for citizens’ assemblies, not because I have a burning desire to assemble random strangers, but because policies like the LVT exist and everyday Americans can recognize its justice.

In progress without poverty,

Max Clark

Hi All,

I first saw the Vsauce video on Lottocracy 5-years ago and my buddy and I came up with a framework to institute a form of Lottocracy in America that I wanted to share here.

Rather than completely throw out our current system in favor of random elections. We thought about how to blend the two. What we came up with is essentially another "layer" of government that would sit on top of Congress. When Congress passes a law, instead of a Presidential veto, there would be a lottocratic veto. Each time a new law is passed, a group of 100 people would be randomly selected from a pool of all eligible voters in the US (you could do 1 person randomly from each state and then 50 picked from the whole population). They would be flown to a 5-star government resort in the middle of the country for 3 days where experts and legislators would come inform them about the bill and the situation/pitch their side. On the third day, they would finish deliberations and vote Yes/No on whether they want to pass the bill. After the bill is passed or vetoed all those people can go home and a new group of 100 is selected for the next bill.

Rather than a fully lottocratic government, this is much more similar to the jury system. Trip is fully covered by the government and hotel resort is nice, but completely locked down to limit outside influence. You could make additional tweaks like lowering the threshold to pass bills in Congress to 30-40% to try to incentivize simpler bills. Ideally this would allow for single-issue bills because you wouldn't need to add tons of thing just to get one more vote and allow for more frequent bills to address current problems.

Other advantages would be taking veto power away from the Executive Branch which could help rebalance the power differential between the branches. Also, corporations would have less of an influence over decisions being made and decisions would better reflect the will of the people. Lastly, it would give the average American much more buy-in to the government. Within a few years most people would know someone who had been selected who could then explain why they voted for or against something. This could help reverse the intense divisiveness in America by getting people in the same room, dialoguing and making decisions together rather than arguing through screens.

Like anything, this isn't a perfect system, but I really believe this would be a better system than our current one and a huge step in the right direction. Curious to get some feedback and hear if you guys think this is more viable than a pure sortition system.