The jury system has long given governmental powers to citizens selected by lot. About 10 years ago, the government of British Columbia randomly chose members for a Citizens Assembly. It’s 160 randomly selected members were asked to come up with a new electoral system for the province. Both juries and the B.C. experiement could be argued to be great successes. However, the idea of government by lottery has never caught fire in the public mind.
Maybe the problem stems from the lacklustre name accorded to the system: sortition. I’ve called it Basic Democracy, but a one-word term would be better. Any ideas out there?
Basic Democracy 