Although it may be off-topic for a VOTING method list, I have long advocated a greater use of sortition (the selection by lot) to select legislators (perhaps one chamber of a bicameral legislature?) Having served ten years as a state legislator in Vermont, USA, I can assure you all that legislators are not more qualified, nor wiser, as Burke hoped, but rather simply less-representative and more egotistical, than average people. The experience and excellent work of the Citizen Assembly established by the provincial parliament in British Columbia a few years ago is compelling evidence that elections may not be the key to genuinely representative democracy.
Terry Bouricius ----- Original Message ----- From: "Fred Gohlke" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <election-methods@lists.electorama.com> Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2008 4:10 PM Subject: Re: [EM] language/framing quibble Whoops! It was your entire post of Mon Sep 8 03:44:51 PDT 2008 I didn't cite it because I was responding to the entire post, which follows: (clip) One option is to select the legislature at random. Stratified random sampling would yield a highly representative legislature. The population would be split into N groups, such that each group is reasonably homogeneous and then 1 person picked from each group. This also reduces the benefit from corrupting the random process. Also, corrupting the stratification just increases the random variance, it doesn't actually change the expect result. Corrupting both means that you get to pick the legislature. This has the advantage that it eliminates the point in campaigning. Every 5 years, a group of people get a mail in the post informing them that they have been selected for 'legislature duty' .. though unlike Juries they would presumably be paid. The disadvantage (or advantage depending on your viewpoint) is that it leads to a legislature made up of average people. I have suggested that a way around it is to have a multi-stage process. The people picked at random are asked to select the 'person they know who they would most respect to hold office' and that generates a second group. The rule would require that the person picked is somehow connected to them, say friends or family members. After a few stages, say 10, the final group becomes the legislature. This should result in a reasonably competent legislature (assuming each person picks someone more competent than themselves) and the rule that you must pick a friend/family members for each link means that campaigning is pointless. This resulting legislature would then appoint the PM (or nominate 2 candidates for President) and approve any cabinet posts. The big disadvantage is that it is unlikely that a person would be re-elected. This could lead to short term thinking. OTOH, each legislator would know that he will have to live in the country after his term ends, so he won't want to mess up to badly. (clip) ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info