Lotteries Instead of Elections? Not So Arbitrary

Have you ever thought that 535 random people off the street would do a decidedly better job than the duly elected members of the U.S. Congress? If so, you’ve been scooped by a few millenniums; the idea of selecting government officials at random, known as sortition, is neither as outrageous nor as original as it seems.

In the fourth and fifth centuries BC, some of the central organs of the Athenian government were populated by selecting random volunteers. For example, the members of the Council of 500 — whose responsibilities included developing legislation, overseeing the executive branch and managing diplomatic relations — were selected at random for one-year terms. Amazingly, it is estimated that 50% to 70% of Athenian citizens over 30 (the minimum eligible age) had served at least one term on the council. This was possible since the overall number of citizens in ancient Athens was roughly equivalent to the population of modern Rome — Rome, Georgia, that is.