I Love Lottocracy
We can improve democracy by getting rid of elections.
Hear me out.
Elections create a myriad of problems that undermine the very ideals they are meant to uphold.
Luckily there's a simple, elegant alternative!
But first we've got to talk about the why it's better.
Who wins elections?
Regardless of your political leanings, if you believe democracy is the best form of government, I think you'll agree with the following statement:
Another way to say this is that democracies should have "political equality"
Direct democracy, where every single person proposes laws and votes on them, is a straightforward and effective way to accomplish political equality. But at a large scale it is too burdensome to use for every political matter. Which is why every democratic nation in the world uses some form of representative democracy, where voters select people to represent their interests.
In theory, citizens can go about their lives knowing that their representatives are making laws that reflect their beliefs and interests. They only need to worry about politics when an election rolls around.
But how well does this work in practice? Are the people and parties who are good at winning elections also good at providing political equality?
The answer is an obvious no.
Ladies and gentlemen and more gentlemen
Let's look around the world at who exactly can get themselves elected, dividing the population into two roughly equal groups: men and women. If representative democracy provides political equality I would expect roughly half of elected representatives to be men, half to be women, and a small percentage to identify as neither.
Let's go through a few countries' national assemblies. I've picked out the most populous countries that score well on a democracy index.
Germany's Bundestag has recently improved it's gender equity, going from 31% women to 35%. Women are no longer outnumbered two to one but only just barely!
India's parliament is just 14% women, something they are trying to correct with a new law that mandates at least 30%. The mandate would put them on par with the United States and Canada, whose parliament and congress are currently around 30% women. But India is still above the 10% of women in Japan's house of representatives.
Indonesia's house of representatives is about 22% women and Brazil's is around 15%.
Clearly the crotches of these governing bodies disproportionately feature dicks.
Mexico is the rare exception thanks to a constitutional mandate of gender parity in every level of government. Viva México!
Some people argue that men do just as good a job representing women as other women. If you are one of these people, please stop arguing and listen more. It's the best thing you could do if there's any hope of your argument becoming true one day.
For the rest of us, it seems obvious that political equality is not happening when it comes to gender. But this isn't the only category that has unequal representation.
Tall narcissists
Taller politicians are more likely to win than their shorter opponents and they know it. Just look at what Florida governor Ron DeSantis is wearing as he campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination.
To have decent odds of winning an election in any representative democracy, it helps to be tall, attractive, charming, self-confident etc. All traits that have little to do with lawmaking or properly representing your constituents. In fact, some studies indicate that the same personality traits associated with serial killers are overrepresented in politicians. Narcissism and psychopathy are directly correlated with political participation.
Think about the typical high school student council. The introverted students who hate public speaking wouldn't dare run for a spot, while the popular kids can breeze into office without breaking a sweat. Does this mean that popular kids are better or worse at representing the student body than the introverts? Of course not. Yet they will inevitably be over-represented.
There are ways we can try and correct for these problems, like Mexico's gender parity requirement, but unless we correct for every bias and superficial judgement (we can't) they will inevitably plague any method of electing representatives.
Cash makes kings
Another humungous problem with elections is money.
In a major election, even accumulating enough name recognition to get past the first rung is astronomically expensive. The cost of campaigning puts a massive wedge between "good at winning elections" and "good at representing their constituents." Candidates must be either fabulously wealthy to begin with or exceptionally talented at fundraising. In either case they have an incentive to favor the rich.
A Princeton study of politics in the USA found the preferences of citizens had no influence whatsoever on the likelihood of a law being passed. However the more economic elites (AKA rich people) supported a policy, the more likely it was to become law.
In rare cases, a candidate may be able to get enough money purely from poorer and middle class donors, however even these candidates must spend a lot of time begging for money. Incumbents running for re-election often spend more time campaigning than doing their job, or even use the power granted by their office to assist with their campaign.
Perhaps strict enforcement of campaign finance laws or public funding of campaigns could improve the situation. But that means changing the very laws that "economic elites" have undue control over. Not something I expect them to be thrilled about. As long rich people have the means to influence elections, influence they shall.
Partisan division and multiplication
Elections have yet another flaw, partisanship.
Sore winner effect
Even if you can find a coalition that perfectly matches your beliefs, you now have to enter into a highly competitive popularity contest (election) in which there will be winners and losers.
Succeeding in any competition fosters a sense of entitlement in the winner. Particularly the sort of expensive, months long, all-consuming competition that is an election. Will the victor, who fought hard for the trophy of elected office, feel as if they now have an obligation to act in the best interest of all? Or will they feel that they have triumphed over rival coalitions and may now safely ignore those losers?
Elections decide issues
If you want your coalition to win, a good strategy is to make the contest feel as consequential as possible to motivate your supporters. Every election becomes the ultimate battle between good and evil. You must draw bright lines between your coalition and the other coalitions. This can manifest as emphasizing minor issues where you disagree, or taking a more radical stance than your primary opponent on an issue where you mostly agree simply to draw contrast.
Issues become warped, no longer deriving from a sincerely held beliefs, but instead selected and amplified to drive electoral victories. Issues become tools to divide and drive voters rather than reflecting what a majority of voters actually want.
Take the anti-abortion movement in the USA. Initially only Catholics were opposed to abortion. The protestant evangelicals of the Southern Baptist convention actually passed multiple resolutions after Roe vs. Wade calling for legal abortion. The issue only became central to evangelicals after pro-segregation political activists weaponized it.
Partisan conflict is rising across the world for a variety of reasons, but by definition partisan tension springs from the existence of the elections themselves.
This polarization can get out of hand, with political parties defining themselves as whatever their opponent isn't, reacting negatively to any action by an opposing coalition. This makes changing political coalitions difficult and scandalous. To align yourself with a different coalition, even on a single issue, is a great betrayal. This leads to the next problem:
Bigger tents fewer choices
Though political beliefs are as varied and complicated as the people that hold them, voters have a limited selection of political parties. The only way to win an election is to join a political coalition large enough to get you or your ideas into office.
Different systems result in different numbers of viable coalitions, ranging from a measly lesser of two evils situation to a plethora of parties. In all cases, the complex beliefs of both the candidates and the individual voters must be subsumed by whichever coalition is the closest match.
Suppose that when voting, Option A supports issues 1 and 2 while Option B is opposed to issues 1 and 2. A voter or candidate who supports issue 1 and opposes issue 2 must give up on one of their issues. While this is a very simple example, a more complicated version happens every time someone steps up to the ballot box.
The elegant fix
Lottocracy (also called sortition but that name is less fun) is basically jury duty but the jury makes the laws instead of deciding whether someone broke them.
Elections are unnecessary, as citizens are selected to serve as lawmakers completely at random. Those who are selected are generously compensated for a set term before going back to their ordinary lives.
Here's a proposed lottocracy system for Tasmania:
Unlike elections, random selection guarantees political equity. The makeup of the lawmaking body will match the makeup of the citizens they represent almost exactly! No longer will lawmakers be disproportionately male, rich, tall, and narcissistic.
Money is no longer a driving force in selecting representatives. In a lottocracy money is only an effective political tool insofar as it can persuade citizens as a whole.
Lawmakers are now completely focused on lawmaking instead of getting re-elected. In a lottocracy there will never be a moment where a lawmaker has to decide between doing what they believe is right and what they believe will keep them in power.
Lottocracy removes the sore winner effect as lawmakers owe their positions to random chance instead of a hard fought campaign. A lawmaker selected at random, having done nothing to earn the position, is more likely to treat the work as a responsibility to their fellow citizens than as a prize that rewards their donors and supporters.
Lottocracy gets rid of political parties and therefor the need to drive partisan divisions in order to win elections. The only way to get your beliefs implemented as law is to persuade a majority the general public.
Won't randomly selected people be bad at lawmaking?
No in fact the opposite may be true. At least one study showed that when a leader was selected at random rather than elected by the group or selected based on skill set, the groups actually performed better.
Randomly selected lawmakers could undergo a training period where they are paired up with other lawmakers who are further along in their terms. They would also have the same resources and teams of assistants as any elected lawmaker.
How many people are needed?
Thanks to the way statistics work, as long as they are selected at random, the number of people needed to accurately reflect the preferences of the whole population does not scale with the size of the population. Whether governing a hundred thousand people or a hundred million the number of randos needed is only around 700 to achieve 99% accurate representation.
What if someone doesn't want to be a lawmaker?
To avoid sampling bias, it is important that almost all of the people selected serve their term as a lawmaker. While rare exceptions will need to be made, serving would be compulsory like the draft. Those who are selected would be very well compensated and would have a team of people responsible for ensuring any necessary accommodations. Allowing citizens to opt out would mean only the politically engaged would serve, defeating the principle of political equality we set out to achieve.
To recap:
- Elections gives more influence to certain kinds of people and less to everyone else.Lottocracy gives equal consideration to everyone.
- Elections require huge sums of money that wind up influencing laws.Lottocracy can't be easily swayed by moneyed interests.
- Elections distract lawmakers and distort their decision making.Lottocracy ensures lawmakers are only doing what they believe is best.
- Elections drive partisan divisions.Lottocracy removes the need for political coalitions.
- Leaders selected through lottocracy may actually be better leaders than those who are elected.
- Relatively small numbers of people (<1000) accurately represent large groups if they are chosen truly at random.
Bethany finds out she's been drafted to congress
How we get there
Hopefully I've convinced you it's worth rolling the dice on lottocracy. But you may be wondering how a system that is using elections could transition to lottocracy.
Some activists are starting at the largest possible scale, such as the Global Assembly that met at the United Nations Climate Change Conference. In the global assembly, 100 representatives were selected at random from lists of people provided by local community organizations from all over the world. They hope to expand the assembly to select from as many people as possible to democratically represent all of humanity.
Lottocracy can also start small. High school and college student governments can experiment with lottocracy, as can homeowners and condo associations. There's also been a growing movement in the scientific community to reward research grants based on lottery selection to ensure novel ideas get funding, rather than just the consensus topics. This idea could extend to other non-profit and NGO grants.
At the level of local, state, and national governments citizen's assemblies are a great place to start. So far these assemblies have acted as a consulting group without any real political power. Denmark has held assemblies for specific issues since the 1980s, and many other countries have experimented with the idea. A permanent assembly could be formed, initially only as a consulting group, and gradually be granted more lawmaking power over time. Perhaps only making recommendations, then proposing laws, then having a say over which ones get passed, and eventually taking full responsibility for the process.
Right now lottocracy is an idea known only by a handful of wonky nerds. Congratulations! You are now one of those nerds. I hope that I've convinced you it's worth trying. At the very least you can use it to derail your family's next political argument.