The Case for Abolishing Elections

What if we replaced elections with a lottery to pick a set of lawmakers who are truly representative of the population they serve? At first, it sounds absurd, because we’re so used to elections being a core part of democracy. On second thought, it makes a lot of sense. But as you start thinking about how this would actually work — not so much the lottery, but what follows after — things get tricky. This piece does a good job of explaining the idea and going into the weeds with what it would entail and examples of how it has been tried and tested. → Related book recommendation: Against Elections, by David Van Reybrouck


From Weekly Filet #424, in January 2023.

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