Talk:Sortition

Athenian Elections
The section of this article which discusses athenian sortition mentions that Athenians did not consider elections democratic. That claim, along with much of the section--when it does not draw on primary sources--refers to a single scholar as a source. Considering that Athenians did use elections sometimes, in addition to sortition, I wonder whether this claim could be disputed, and if so, whether it is necessary to the content of this article. I'm not sure myself, but would encourage anyone with more knowledge of how Athenians conceived of elections and sortition respectively to take a look! TherealLiamplsc308 (talk) 00:57, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Untitled
It is said that even the etymology of "ballot" reflects the role of sortition in ancient times, but someone needs to check the OED to make sure this is an accurate reflection.

Selection by lot: drawing straws, rolling dice, etc.

Slightly amplify the reference to "qualification" so that "random" sounds less silly.

Aristotle and classical analysis of sortition
The entry currently says that "Arguably, selection by lot is a more democratic process than election by vote, since sortition is less influenced by money and fame. Aristotle and other classical writers who discussed the subject took this view."

While there are statemnts by Aristotle (Politics, book 4, chap. 9) saying that sortition is democratic, I am unaware of any specific argument offered by him for why this is so. The same, as far as I know, is true for Montesquieu and Rousseau. All these authors seem to take it for granted that sortition is democratic, but fail to provide any arguments. I think the entry should be changed to correctly describe this situation. --Drono 04:14, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Text from Allotment
The following text was on Allotment, which was looking nothing like the dab page it claimed to me. It seems a bit too good just to delete, so I'm putting in here for someone to merge into this article if thought appropriate. Cheers --Pak21 11:30, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Allotment (also known as sortition) is a method of selection by some form of lottery such as drawing coloured pebbles from a bag. It was commonly used in Ancient Greek Democracy. It is thought that allotment originally developed from the use of oracles to divine the will of the gods, but by the time of Ancient Greeks like Herodotus it was a key part of the the Athenian political system.

Athenian Democracy developed out of a notion of isonomia (equality of political rights), and Allotment was the principle way of achieving this fairness. Greek "Democracy" (literally meaning rule by the people) was literally run by the people: the administration was in the hands of committees allotted from the people. Although it may seem strange to those used to Liberal Democracy the Athenian Greeks considered Elections to be undemocratic. This was because citizens chosen on merit or popularity contradicted the democratic principle of equality of all citizenry. In addition allotment prevented the corrupt practise of buying votes as no one could know who would be selected as a magistrate or to sit on the Jury.

Athenian Democracy used allotment to select around 90% of the magistrates for their governing committees. Only in exceptional cases such as generals of the army (strategoi) did Athenians vote for candidates (even Greeks saw the benefit of selecting their generals on merit rather than principle ). Their huge juries (typically 501) were allotted using sophisticated machines to ensure jurors were fairly allocated. These juries not only tried cases, handed down sentences (see the trial of Socrates), but could also overturn laws passed by the citizen's assembly.

Allotment is today restricted mainly to the selection of jurors in Anglo-Saxon legal systems like the UK and US.

For the use of lots in divination see Cleromancy.

Fairness
Selection bias and the potential incorrect math, sortition is not certain to be fair and any statement alledging it's fairnss should refer to respected source on statistics/probability applications. i kan reed 00:54, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Demarchy
Much of the pros and cons for Sortition are found in a similar form in the Demarchy article. I'm thinking that Demarchy should be merged into this article as a result. --One Salient Oversight 11:57, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

See main discussion on the Demarchy talk page. 66.127.54.23 (talk) 03:59, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Done, finally :) See old talk-page and revived 2014 discussion of merger at talk:Demarchy ★NealMcB★ (talk) 18:55, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Aristotle on Wikisource
I see that this article references Aristotle's "Politics"... It seems the text of this is online in wikisource... I am not sure how to read these references to be honest... to find the corresponding quotes in the book... Could someone clarify that for me? Also, why not provide a link to the wikisource text? LordBrain (talk) 03:38, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Politics_%28Aristotle%29


 * I came across the same issue and managed to find the cited text, except it's not cited correctly, according to the translation in Wikisource. The number within square brackets in the citation refers to the same section in the book: ""[...] as, for instance, as it seems correspondent to the nature of a democracy, that the magistrates should be chosen by lot, but an aristocracy by vote [...]""


 * In other words, it seems to me that Aristotle was merely reporting the differing opinions of his times about such topics, but not endorsing any one of these opinions. Moreover, Wikisource's translation talks about Magistrates, not generic public offices as it's reported here. Which one is right? --Bafio (talk) 15:28, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Bot report : Found duplicate references !
In the last revision I edited, I found duplicate named references, i.e. references sharing the same name, but not having the same content. Please check them, as I am not able to fix them automatically :) DumZiBoT (talk) 02:31, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
 * "MorgenIsonomia" :
 * The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes", Mogens Herman Hansen, ISBN 1-85399-585-1
 * The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes", Mogens Herman Hansen, ISBN 1-85399-585-1

Appreciation
The reading of this article has been one of the best experiences of roaming the Wikipedia so far. I simply want to credit all the contributors for this. This was unexpected and gave way to new realizations, and renewed political enthusiasm in me. Thanks --Xact (talk) 22:37, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

a fictional view
My favorite passage from Ken MacLeod's novel Dark Light:
 * Drawing lots is fair, even if it sometimes throws up a freak result. With elections you’re actually building the minority problem right in at every level, and lots more with it – parties, money, fame, graft, just for starters.  What chance would that leave ordinary people, what chance would we have of being heard or of making a difference?  Elections are completely undemocratic, they’re downright antidemocratic.  Everybody knows that !

—Tamfang (talk) 23:07, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Enthusiasm of the representatives
You can ensure representatives are enthusiastic about representing the population by a lottery system: each person who is enthusiastic can get one ticket. Then draw among the ticket holders instead of the whole population. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.206.137.118 (talk) 16:09, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Models
See Why a citizen’s parliament chosen by lot would be ‘perfect’ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lsky (talk • contribs) 22:34, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Intended alterations to article
''I am part of a Yale undergraduate course studying representative government and its evolution. As part of my studies, I plan to research lotocracies and strengthen this page. I am incredibly interested in the use of lot within republics and I believe that by improving this article I can help to spark conversation about sovereignty and representation. Below I have outlined some intended changes, and I would very much appreciate any and all feedback. I look forward to working with the Wiki community on this article, and I thank all of you for your hard work in providing the world with knowledge.''

Introduction - I plan to expand this portion of the article with additional summarization of later points and introduce new information about general pro/con themes.

1 History - Additional information, after research, will be added about historical examples of sortition. This especially includes a deeper dive into the systems of Greece, Venice and Florence.

Example: "In Athens, to be eligible to be chosen by lot, citizens self-selected themselves into the available pool, then lotteries in the chlorite machines. The magistracies assigned by lot generally had terms of service of 1 year. A citizen could not hold magistracy more than once in his lifetime, but could hold other magistracies.  All citizens over 30 years of age, who were not guilty of atimia, were eligible. Those selected through lot underwent examination called dokimasia in order to avoid incompetent officials.  Rarely were selected citizens discarded .  Magistrates, once in place, were subjected to constant monitoring by the Assembly.  Magistrates appointed by lot had to render account of their time in office upon their leave, called euthynai.  However, any citizen could request the suspension of a magistrate with due reason.

In Florence, systems of lot were used to select magistrates and members of the Signoria during republican periods. Florence utilized a combination of lot and scrutiny by the people, set forth by the ordinances of 1328. In 1494, Florence founded a Great Council in the model of Venice. The nominatori were thereafter chosen by lot from among the members of the Great Council, indicating a decline in aristocratic power.

Lot was used in the Venetian system only to select members of the committees that nominated candidates to be considered by the Great Council for political posts. A combination of election and lot was used in this multi-stage process. Lot was not used alone to select magistrates, unlike in Florence and Athens. The use of lot to select nominators made it more difficult for political sects to exert power, and discouraged campaigning. By reducing intrigue and power moves within the Great Council, lot maintained cohesiveness among the Venetian nobility, contributing to the stability of this republic. Top magistracies generally still remained in the control of elite families ."

2 Advantages - I plan to add 1-2 more advantages. Additionally, I plan to connect some of the advantages back to historical examples of their success.

·Effective representation of the interests of the people ·Fairness & Equality ·Democratic ·Less corruptible than elections ·Fair representation ·Power to ordinary people ·Voter fatigue ·Loyalty is to conscience not to political party

3 Disadvantages - I plan to add another disadvantage,

The difference between arithmetical and geometrical equality as outlined by Isocrates. Choosing the correct mean is essential to correctly estimating the central tendency of a population or calculating investment returns. Although the concept of an average may seem simple, it is imperative for a user to carefully consider which mean to use–and to communicate to reader or intended audience the method of deriving the average and the rationale for doing so.

·Pure sortition does not discriminate ·Misrepresentation ·Sortition can put in power people with minority views ·Voting confers legitimacy ·Some forms of sortition entail compulsion ·Enthusiasm of the representatives ·Accountability

Methods - These processes are generally measured in terms of political efficacy. Researchers at the University of Michigan's Survey Research Center originally introduced the concept of political efficacy in their mid-twentieth century studies of national elections in the United States. Campbell, Gurin, and Miller defined efficacy as the "feeling that individual political action does have, or can have, an impact upon the political process, i.e., that it is worth- while to perform one's civic duties". Later researchers convincingly argued, though, that efficacy is not simply a unidimensional construct. Instead, efficacy consists of at least two related, but distinguishable, concepts: (1) external efficacy, which refers to citizens' perceptions of the responsiveness of the political system to their demands, and (2) internal efficacy, which refers to the citizens' feelings of personal competence "to understand and to participate effectively in politics."

Examples - This portion seems redundant after “History.” I will add further examples to it, such as the Great Council of Venice, to make it more substantive.

Hollymjg95 (talk) 18:08, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

These are great additions. Might I also suggest that one advantage of sortition is that it leads to descriptive representation. In representative democracies elites tend to be representatives. A system of sortition leads to representatives that are descriptively representative of the larger polity's population. % female, % lower class, % minority etc. I haven't found a good source for this argument though.--Tropdotism (talk) 04:56, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 2 one external links on Sortition. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090717172552/http://www.sos.state.nm.us/pdf/NMElectHdbk.pdf to http://www.sos.state.nm.us/pdf/NMElectHdbk.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20120828182918/http://ragemag.fr:80/populiste-nest-pas-un-gros-mot-entretien-avec-etienne-chouard/ to http://ragemag.fr/populiste-nest-pas-un-gros-mot-entretien-avec-etienne-chouard

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Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 07:29, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Merge Stochocracy
Is there any objection to merging Stochocracy in here? There has been a proposal on the Talk:Stochocracy page since 2012 to merge it in here. According to [http://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/290/is-there-any-difference-between-demarchy-and-stochocracy terminology - Is there any difference between demarchy and stochocracy? - Politics Stack Exchange], "Stochocracy is just an attempt to translate the french word stochocracie, which is a word used to refer to any democracy that uses sortition to select its decision makers." ★NealMcB★ (talk) 19:46, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

==== I should vote against the merging, because stochocracy isn´t limited to sortition. This became clearer in countries distinguished by nearly chaotic governances, where the issue has been discussed more than under comparatively stable, or successful, governments. An example is es.wikipedia.org/ article "Estococracia". Sortition (just an attempt to translate the french word "sortition") isn´t needed for stochocracy; this later is the general term. The stochastic character of governants can be attained by arbitrarily putting any determining number, e.g. a section of the identity card number. Establishing it as 0000 yields an statistical sample of the population in the same way (i.e., as mathematically fair as) sorting such a determining number. See the Argentinian long labored (yet unapplied!) example in es.wiki

==== This is why stochocracy is the gender and the forms of sortition, as well as the forms of arbitrary establishment of the "determinant" number, are its species. The wider concept is therefore Stochocracy.

==== Best regards,

I would also object to merging "everything" to Sortition. I believe that the Sortition Article is far to complex and some readers in search of a few simple terms "demarchie, lottocracy etc." will find a lot of text but simply not what they were looking for. This sortition article btw reminds me of the attempt of Hegel to write an intruduction to a planned history of philosophy. his introduction finally turned out to have 900 pages and is today titled "Phaenomenologie des Geistes"; the History of Philosophy was never written. - I would go as far and rather erase the sortition article instead of merging anything into it! Lachteufel (talk) 00:15, 11 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Merge if not delete - The other article has no secondary or tertiary sources, does not adequately distinguish itself as more than a variety of sortition, and appears to be a WP:POVFORK for French advocates of the system. I would not point out the nationality, except I've seen at least three of them who don't seem to realize that this is the English Wikipedia (for example, using the French title for an originally English-language book by American author Philip K Dick). Ian.thomson (talk) 07:46, 15 May 2016 (UTC)
 * It looks like Ian merged/redirected the Stochocracy article on 2016-05-15T02:03:54‎. For previous contents / discussions, see the template I added at the top of this talk page, or see .  ★NealMcB★ (talk) 23:48, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Sortition. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20071228190617/http://www.uow.edu.au:80/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/92kio.html to http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/92kio.html

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External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Sortition. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20110714044240/http://www.masslbp.com/downloads/MASSLBPSortedfulltext.pdf to http://www.masslbp.com/downloads/MASSLBPSortedfulltext.pdf

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Voting confers legitimacy. Disadvantage?
In the article, exposes the lack of legitimacy of Sortition as a disadvantage. You should notice that in Athenian Democracy that was not considered a disadvantage at all. I'll try to explain why: If you are not chosen, you don't have legitimacy. That is, you can't do what you want, because nobody chose you. That is a disadvantage if officers must not answer for their work, but is an advantage if power resides on the assembly like in Athenian Democracy. That is: It may be an advantage or disadvantage depending on how the political system works. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rober2D2 (talk • contribs) 15:58, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

German version
Hello, I have tried to add a link to the German article https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Losverfahren but for whatever reason when accessing the English version, it is not displayed. If it is not displayed after a revision, kindly add it. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.105.160.157 (talk) 12:31, 4 July 2016 (UTC) There is a link from the German to the English article, but not vice versa. The top left header displays Wikidata, I can enter the German keyword, but I am not allowed to save it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.105.160.157 (talk) 12:35, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

I believe the correct German article would be this one: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demarchie Cbd4738 (talk) 10:35, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

Okay, but how is it actually DONE?
I clicked on a link that said "drawing lots", because I was curious how one actually "drew lots" as opposed to "drawing straws"; instead I find this dense article full of talk of people who have done so, why they did so, the pros and cons of doing so, but nowhere does it describe how the actual process of "sortition" works. If I hadn't come to this page by clicking "Drawing lots", I'm not sure I'd even be able to figure out that that's what you are talking about. It says "whereby politicians are randomly selected"...there is nothing to indicate that they are selected by a system of drawing marked "lots". I'd have assumed that you were talking about eenie-meenie-miny-moe or something. And then, it still doesn't say anything about "drawing lots" in modern culture where we don't have these lots-drawing machines. What is a "lot"? How are they marked? I read something elsewhere about a man "drawing the black spot", but otherwise I'm mystified, and this page hasn't helped me at all. Maybe there is something in here and I just missed it amongst all the rest, but if so, then it really should be easier to find. The page on Drawing straws is concise enough! AnnaGoFast (talk) 19:02, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

FBI says man planned to bomb National Mall on Election Day
Prosecutors said he planned to use the bomb to kill himself and draw attention to a political system called sortition, in which public officials are chosen randomly rather than elected.

https://www.apnews.com/3ac69f349383457eb9ace188d18a3380

Corruption
The claim that sortition combats corruption seems debatable because of Unaccountability. Yes, it makes manipulation of selected officials more expensive, but there is a danger that money appropriation by officials can become the norm. By contrast, elected officials are scrutinized for corruption (albeit with limited success) and bear (limited) consequences for it. Pgan002 (talk) 21:03, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Image from New Tasmanian Democracy
I am the director of New Tasmanian Democracy, and I placed the image into the article as a way to explain how it might work.

It was removed as a "promotional image".

However, there are two important points:

1. The image is under a creative commons license, so there are no copyright problems.

2. The image depicts how sortition might work in one particular area, and how it might replace an electoral system.

3. Many political articles have images sourced from various special interest groups as a way of explaining issues.

If someone replaces the image I uploaded with a similar one that is more generic, I will not complain.

--One Salient Oversight (talk) 03:14, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

Merge with People's jury
It has been proposed that People's jury be merged into Sortition.
 * Oppose. The institution of a People's jury uses sortition, but has unique characteristics of its own, and is discussed as a distinct concept in sources. Daask (talk) 16:12, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Support. A People's jury is identical to the subheading of Sortition to choose legislative juries in this page. It's also mentioned (as "Citizens' jury") under Modern examples. Expanding those two sections here to be as detailed as the current freestanding page and turning it into a redirect here is a clear win. --PDVk (talk) 17:42, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
 * On further investigation, there are three separate pages for citizen's assembly, citizen's jury, and people's jury. There is a lot of overlap between these four pages and none of them is of stellar quality; I think they should be merged into two pages, perhaps three. --PDVk (talk) 18:01, 1 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Comment I oppose the merger of citizens' assembly with sortition – the former is about specific types of bodies, while the latter is about a process that is not limited to use in citizens' assemblies. However, citizen's jury and people's jury could probably be merged with citizens' assembly. Number   5  7  13:39, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
 * If anyone can vote, I oppose merger into sortition. DAVilla (talk) 15:21, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose the merger of sortition, which is a selection method, with the other pages which are about specific types of bodies chosen by sortition. I do not have an opinion about whether to merge the other pages with each other. Krubo (talk) 14:14, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose merger of Sortition with the other pages per reasons given above, but no opinion about whether to merge the other pages with each other. Since there is clear opposition above to including Sortition in this merge proposal, I have removed Sortition from the merge templates, but the link in the merge template on each of the other pages still points here for discussion of the merger of those pages. I've created a new suheading below for further discussion of the remaining merge proposal. Biogeographist (talk) 16:36, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Revised proposal to merge Citizens' assembly, Citizens' jury, and People's jury

 * Support the merger of People's jury and Citizens' jury.--Geysirhead (talk) 06:53, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Done People's jury is merged into Citizens' jury --Geysirhead (talk) 07:42, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Origin of lottery
An unreferenced paragraph of Lottery:
 * The first recorded Italian lottery was held on 9 January 1449 in Milan organized by the Golden Ambrosian Republic to finance the war against the Republic of Venice. However, it was in Genoa that Lotto became very popular. People used to bet on the name of Great Council members, who were drawn by chance, five out of ninety candidates every six months. This kind of gambling was called Lotto or Semenaiu. When people wanted to bet more frequently than twice a year, they began to substitute the candidates names with numbers and modern lotto was born, to which both modern legal lotteries and the illegal Numbers game can trace their ancestry.

--Error (talk) 02:15, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Linking to page on Japanese Wikipedia
Hi, I believe this page ("Sortition") should be linked to the page https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%81%8F%E3%81%98 on the Japanese version of Wikipedia, but I don't know how to do that.

Wiki Education assignment: Open Democracy
— Assignment last updated by SirChristian1673 (talk) 13:44, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

Sortition as principal characteristic
"In ancient Athenian democracy, sortition was the traditional and primary method for appointing political officials, and its use was regarded as a principal characteristic of democracy."

The two sources cited don't mention sortition at all, as far as I can tell. The first looks like a bibliography or works cited page and the second doesn't ever mention the word "sortition" (Ctrl+F). 50.47.164.241 (talk) 07:42, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

More examples
In 2019, the German speaking Ostbelgien region in Belgium, implemented the Ostbelgien Model, consisting of an 24-member Citizen's Council which convenes short term Citizen's Assemblies to provide non-binding recommendations to its parliament. Later that same year both the main and French-speaking parliaments of the Brussels-Capital Region voted to authorize setting up mixed parliamentary committees composed of parliamentarians and randomly selected citizens to draft recommendations on a given issue.

The Amish have used sortition to a slate of nominees when they select their community leaders. In their process, formal members of the community each register a single private nomination, and candidates with a minimum threshold of nominations then stand for the random selection that follows. Local government in parts of Tamil Nadu such as the village of Uttiramerur traditionally used a system known as kuda-olai where the names of candidates for the village committee were written on palm leaves and put into a pot and pulled out by a child. Superb Owl (talk) 20:02, 19 February 2024 (UTC)