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Topic: Sortition

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	Sortition - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Contemporary supporters add that sortition allows direct democracy to scale up to today's large populations: by reducing the number of people making a decision from the whole population down to an unbiased sample representative of that population, sortition alleviates the problems of voter fatigue and rational ignorance, which occur in general elections and referendums.
		Selection by sortition has a drawback that resembles one of the philosophical objections to the military draft (selective service)—namely, that it is less respectful of individual autonomy than is a system based on voluntary choice to serve.
		Another objection to sortition is that it does not purport to reflect the "will of the people" regarding who they choose to be their representatives; the roulette wheel chooses, instead of the people.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Sortition (1202 words)

	Sortition (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Sortition is the act of random selection, particularly of decision makers.
		Classical advocates of sortition, such as Aristotle, held that it was a more democratic process than election since it was less influenced by money and fame.
		Contemporary supporters also add that sortition allows direct democracy to scale up to today's large populations: by reducing the number of people making a decision from the whole population down to an unbiased sample of that population, sortition alleviates the problems of voter fatigue and rational ignorance which occur in general elections and referenda.
	bopedia.com /en/wikipedia/s/so/sortition.html (301 words)

	Sortition: Encyclopedia topic (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Classical advocates of sortition, such as Aristotle (Aristotle: One of the greatest of the ancient Athenian philosophers; pupil of Plato; teacher of Alexander the Great (384-322 BC)), held that selection by lot is a more democratic (democratic: democracy is a form of government under which the power to alter the laws and structures...
		Selection by sortition has a drawback that resembles one of the philosophical objections to the military draft (military draft: conscription is a general term for involuntary labor demanded by some established authority,...
		Another objection to sortition is that it does not purport to reflect the "will of the people" regarding who they choose to be their representatives; the roulette (roulette: A line generated by a point on one figure rolling around a second figure) wheel chooses, instead of the people.
	www.absoluteastronomy.com /reference/sortition (1094 words)

	Roland, Sortition for Judges
		Ostensibly that is done to balance the load on their dockets, allow for time off, and other factors, but we have seen that it is sometimes an opening to the corrupt practice of assigning a case to a judge who is not impartial in that case.
		That grand jury would then supervise the sortition of the large pool into a smaller pool consisting of, say 100 candidates for each position to be filled, and a second sortition from that larger pool of a second grand jury to supervise the next stage of the process.
		Sortition could be adopted to replace or supplement partisan nomination for elected executive and legislative positions.
	www.constitution.org /elec/sortition_judges.htm (929 words)

	Sortition Did You Mean sortition (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Sortition is the method of random selection, particularly in relation to the selection of decision makers.
		Aristotle's appreciation of the power of sortition as a means to reduce the influence of money in politics is still relevant.
		Critics of American elections in the twenty-first century make a similar argument?that because the process of election by vote has become increasingly subject to manipulation by money and other powerful forces, legislative elections are actually a less representative system than selection by lot from among the population.
	www.did-you-mean.com /Sortition.html (917 words)

	Sortition Policy Guidelines (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Sortition business methods are informed by research which is conducted on the basis of an advanced theoretical perspective on global developments.
		The US Constitution could be amended to favour a tax regime which more consistently upholds the self evident truth that we are all born equal by, where possible, shifting the burden of taxation from wages and profits to inherited wealth.
		Sortition policy will be to promote dialogue and to support initiatives which can facilitate these aims, such as the holding of a
	www.sortition.com /policy-guidelines.htm (632 words)

	/ How to place an ad - "Service of Business World" Ltd.
		Advertisements for the covers are chosen according to the results of a sortition, the date of which is determined by the Editorial Office’s Advertising Agency.
		The sortition is carried out in an open matter and in the presence of representatives of advertising agencies.
		Advertising agencies that won the sortition and paid the fee for advertising must submit a model of the advertisement for the approval of the Editorial Office no later than one month before the publication of the advertisement.
	www.d-mir.info /info/howtoplace (797 words)

	Viewropa - The Sortition Option (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Sortition or selection by lot, from the Latin sortiri, has a long history of use, going back to the ancient Solonian Constitution of Athens, and serving the Republic of Venice well for 1000 years.
		Sortition sounds like another good idea that we Dumbericans are sure to throw fits in opposition to...
		my main fear of a 100% sortition system is that there's always going to be opt-out clauses (just as there are now for jury service) and this will reduce the extent to which the system is representative.
	viewropa.com /index.php/2004/10/31/the_sortition_option (1431 words)

	4-Advancing Democracy (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Today sortition is mainly used for the selection of juries, which are sometimes empowered to make life or death decisions.
		Typically, sortition proposals today are put forward as a method for selecting a large legislative body (e.g., congress or parliament) from among the adult population at large; the numbers involved make the logistics of such “random sampling” a practical approach.
		Selection by non-voluntary sortition has a drawback that resembles one of the philosophical objections to the military draft (selective service): namely, conscription is less respectful of individual autonomy than is a system based on voluntary choice to serve.
	www.globalpublic.org /page8.html (2630 words)

	Ernest Callenbach & Michael Phillips - A Citizen Legislature
		As it happens, there are 23 states that currently have an initiative process and could fairly readily vote to introduce a sortition process into the selection of their lower-house representatives.
		Resistance to the sortition idea comes generally, in the last analysis, from an attachment to hierarchy and a lack of trust in the people themselves.
		But to endorse sortition as a means of representing the people does not require believing that the people are perfect.
	www.context.org /ICLIB/IC11/Calnbach.htm (1981 words)

	SDRS Iraq Proposal (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		The existence of sortition in the Articles of Confederation is a largely unknown but vitally important historical fact, which demonstrates the wide range of understanding which informed policy makers in these early years.
		Jefferson was keenly aware of the negative influence of faction on the political process, but maintained a pragmatic compromise with those forces who adopted a less than open and honest approach to the new republic, including the freemasons.
		In particular, sortition could provide an important democratic form to contain the deleterious influence of factional politics, and strengthen the role of impartial decision making upon a constitutional foundation.
	www.sortition.org.uk /iraq.htm (2931 words)

	citleg2
		Even though sortition may not be seriously considered for a legislative body for many years, experiments of this kind will gradually familiarize people with the principle.
		Since we believe that the sortition principle should be of interest to all people with a concern for democratic government, we hope to include additional comments from still other points of view in a future edition.
		The authors claim that resistance to their sortition solution comes from "an attachment to hierarchy and a lack of trust in the people themselves." Granted, there is truth here.
	www.well.com /user/mp/citleg2.html (10632 words)

	Book VI, Ch. X
		The idea of sortition was first introduced by the dictates of superstition.
		Every man who pretends to philosophy will confess that, wherever sortition is introduced, the decision is exclusively guided by the laws of impulse and gravitation.
		To tell men that it is necessary they should form their decision by ballot is to tell them that it is necessary they should be ashamed of their integrity.
	dwardmac.pitzer.edu /Anarchist_Archives/godwin/pj6/pj6_10.html (941 words)

	citleg
		They seem not to have known of the Greek use of random selection, or "sortition," in choosing representatives, and in any case statistical procedures did not yet exist that would permit reliably representative selection by lot in a society even as populous as the original thirteen states.
		This is a difficult and critical point, one that goes to the heart of the difference between the election and sortition principles.
		The latter would certainly have, among themselves, a livelier and more realistic sense of the life of the country and its pressing problems; they would have a more varied collective experience to draw upon, and they would not be constrained in their thinking by a desire to cosset corporations.
	www.well.com /user/mp/citleg.html (12337 words)

	untitled
		Sortition (selection by lot) and other elements reveal Cleisthenic leadership's intense fear of aristocratic influence.
		Sortition a religious tool, essentially leaving the choice to the gods, apparently because selection by humans could not be trusted.
		Examples of sortition within sortition within sortition, as in the Council of 500, demonstrates the intense jealousy of the new democracy to institute truly random means of selection in order to eliminate any and all influence by existing aristocratic factions.
	web.ics.purdue.edu /~rauhn/athens_tyranny.htm (2576 words)

	[No title]
		She demonstrates that democratic priesthoods were never elective [something of an irony in a so-called "democracy"?], but that an earlier system of election for gentilician priesthoods, such as those of the Eumolpidai, Kerykes and Eteoboutadai, appears to have been replaced from the early 5th century by some kind of selective sortition.
		This system of sortition from a restricted field of candidates was replaced again ca 21 BC by direct election (325-335).
		The laws that governed Athens are the theme of another group of papers: R. Thomas, Law and the Lawgiver in the Athenian Democracy (119-134), discusses the fourth-century feeling that "Solon's" laws were simple, few and effective; behind this view was "a sense of unease and nostalgia".
	www.infomotions.com /serials/bmcr/bmcr-9506-walbank-ritual.txt (2105 words)

	The Sortition Option
		Not favorable to sortition, but not fond of balloting, either.
		Argues against sortition, for representation based on merit and property.
		Sortition: Society for Democracy including Random Selection (SDRS) — Promote random selection as a complementary method of election.
	www.constitution.org /elec/sortition.htm (420 words)

	Demarchy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		According to Burnheim, random selection of policymakers would make it easier for everyday citizens to meaningfully participate, and harder for special interests to corrupt the process.
		More generally, random selection of decision makers is known as sortition.
		Recently, the Canadian province of British Columbia has made use of Demarchy in the formation of the Citizen's Assembly; a group of citizens randomly selected to propose a new electoral process to be ratified by the general population by referendum.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Demarchy (1666 words)

	Formal Essay
		Supporters of election-by-lot (or "sortition") argue that election systems corrupt politics and that legislatures chosen by lot are more truly representative.
		Because the opponents of sortition will not bother to write about the proposal until they believe there is a real possibility of it being enacted.
		Godwin is critical of sortition, but you should note he doesn't have too many positive things to say about voting either.
	uhaweb.hartford.edu /CHRANDERS/formal_essay1.htm (1225 words)

	Godwin, "Political Justice," Book 6, Chap. 10
		The idea of sortition derives from the same root as the idea of discretionary rights.
		To tell men that it is necessary they should form their decision by ballot, is to tell them that it is necessary they should be vicious.
		If sortition taught us to desert our duty, ballot teaches us to draw a veil of concealment over our performance of it.
	web.bilkent.edu.tr /Online/www.english.upenn.edu/jlynch/Frank/Godwin/pj610.html (771 words)

	Athenian Democracy
		He is sometimes credited with introducing sortition as well, but that is doubtful.
		The Lot, or sortition, may have been introduced by Cleisthenes in 508/7, but by 487, there was a prelim election followed by a selection by lot.
		Much was done by sortition, also called "lot." Boards of ten (one per tribe) were common, and collegiality was the rule.
	www.uvm.edu /~jbailly/courses/clas21/notes/atheniandemocracy.html (2583 words)

	The Other Side forums - suitable for mature readers! > Demarchy (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Also, I point you to the section of the article behind the second link that mentions the experiments done by the University of Wuppertal (great name!) and the Jefferson Centre, in which demarchy was tested on a small scale.
		The participants who were sortitioned took the matter "very seriously, [drew] "sensible" conclusions and [became] firmly committed to the process of participation", which I think is highly encouraging.
		One answer is to have a mix of elected posts, sortitioned posts and permanent posts (requiring the entry exams, interviews and aptitude tests usual to normal employment methods), which is an idea I favour.
	www.matazone.co.uk /forums/lofiversion/index.php/'http://webpost.net/ki/kidvicious2punk/t12318.html (1752 words)

	Sortition -- FCS Discussion Forum
		One way to avoid the carbon of the lower house problem would be to use sortition, selection by lottery as a method for choosing some of the members of the upper house.
		Sortition is democratic in the sense that every one would have a equal chance to be selected, but since it would depend on the luck of the draw their would be no problem of a mirror result of the House of Commons.
		Before someone points out that this not a traditional way for the English Speaking nations to chose legislators, let me agree, but point out it is the way we chose jury members.
	www.voy.com /111464/6/7216.html (149 words)

	documented life » Blog Archive » Sortition and Lottery Based Political Representation: A Review of Barbara ...
		Sortition and Lottery Based Political Representation: A Review of Barbara Goodwin, Justice by Lottery, 1992
		There are many variants that are imaginable, and that directly address the corruption that is now rampant in American public life.
		The first step to bringing the lottery back to political respectability is to use sortition at the grass roots level, and I’m looking at how I can make that happen.
	www.documentedlife.com /log/?p=137 (387 words)

	Learn more about Athens in the online encyclopedia. (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Ostracism took place only by written ballot (voters scratched a name on a potsherd or ostracon).
		Lot or random choice of a citizen from a pre-determined group filled a number of positions in the Athenian democracy (see sortition).
		For instance, the Chairman of the Prytany or Council of 50 was chosen by lot from the 50.
	www.onlineencyclopedia.org /a/at/athens.html (2316 words)

	David Wheldon - Annotations to selected poems (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Sortition implies a search by divination, usually through unrelated artifacts, natural phenomena, or the abstractions of number, though not through evidence, at least at a conscious level.
		Wise can mean skilled in sortition (and knowing by learnt experience what sortition can and cannot do), or, alternatively, predicting, proceeding, and acting on the basis of sortition.
		Most of what we do is worked out by a kind of sortition of which we are mostly unaware: one has to be sortition-wise to live in any kind of society and to move, comfortably, sortition-wise within it.
	www.davidwheldon.co.uk /ap_notes.html (5414 words)

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