To Save America's Democracy We Should End Elections(duncangh.com)
duncangh.com
To Save America's Democracy We Should End Elections
https://duncangh.com/2025/05/17/to-save-america-we-must-end-elections/
19 comments
His critique of the electoral process and its effects is spot on, but the alternative that he gestures towards (with such contrasting vagueness) does not exist.
Fair enough. Any thoughts?
David Van Reybrouck wrote "Against Elections: The Case for Democracy" about a decade ago.
I have mixed feelings about it: it sounds nice in theory, but it's unclear how well it would work in practice.
A lot of ideas from Muammar Gaddafi's early reign sound quite nice too. In practice it didn't really work out so well. Some communist movements didn't have such bad ideas either, and we all know how that worked out.
If anything, the thing that Trump and Co. have underscored is that a very important task of democratic systems is to prevent bad faith actors from doing bad faith things. It's often hard to predict how bad faith actors will try to abuse things.
I have mixed feelings about it: it sounds nice in theory, but it's unclear how well it would work in practice.
A lot of ideas from Muammar Gaddafi's early reign sound quite nice too. In practice it didn't really work out so well. Some communist movements didn't have such bad ideas either, and we all know how that worked out.
If anything, the thing that Trump and Co. have underscored is that a very important task of democratic systems is to prevent bad faith actors from doing bad faith things. It's often hard to predict how bad faith actors will try to abuse things.
You're right to be cautious when placing optimism in captivating theories on governance. Venezuela is another instance of great rhetoric eventually deteriorating into devastation. But as things are in America I feel like it's nice to dream
The US is in an uniquely bad place because none of the major democratic institutions work as they're designed to work. It kind of limps along, but it's completely dysfunctional and has been for decades. Not to be the arrogant European, many Americans don't seem to realise just how bizarre their system of government is.
It's not hard to see how some relatively simple common sense reforms would improve the situation. The first problem is that democratic reform, no matter how "common sense" or popular, is always hard because whoever is in power is in power because of the existing system.
The second problem is that the current GOP is not interested in good faith debate on pretty much anything. This predates Trump; during the Obama years I would joke that I had written an AI to replace the Republican party: "IF proposed_by("Obama") THEN oppose() END". You can make a long shaggy dog story out of this. The cult of personality surrounding Trump only made it worse.
I'm not entirely sure what the solution is; but sweeping reforms that you're proposing here have essentially zero chance of success (aside from whether they're even desirable in the first place).
Maybe Trump screwing up bad enough will dispel some illusions and give the Democratic party enough power to push through some reforms down the line, but I'm not holding my breath (in part because the Democratic leadership seems completely out of touch).
It's not hard to see how some relatively simple common sense reforms would improve the situation. The first problem is that democratic reform, no matter how "common sense" or popular, is always hard because whoever is in power is in power because of the existing system.
The second problem is that the current GOP is not interested in good faith debate on pretty much anything. This predates Trump; during the Obama years I would joke that I had written an AI to replace the Republican party: "IF proposed_by("Obama") THEN oppose() END". You can make a long shaggy dog story out of this. The cult of personality surrounding Trump only made it worse.
I'm not entirely sure what the solution is; but sweeping reforms that you're proposing here have essentially zero chance of success (aside from whether they're even desirable in the first place).
Maybe Trump screwing up bad enough will dispel some illusions and give the Democratic party enough power to push through some reforms down the line, but I'm not holding my breath (in part because the Democratic leadership seems completely out of touch).
I actually think some of the dysfunction is by design and what has made the dollar so stable throughout the last 25 years or so. No major legislation can get passed and thus anything too radical is ctrl-z'd by the next executive and we revert to mean and nothing ever changes writ large although the division and mutual contempt carries on
Sortition might not help. The problems include:
• Skiving. People don't want to be torn from their lives and careers to do something else against their will. In the jury system this shows up as people deliberately trying to be excluded, which isn't that hard.
• Length of time required. Jury trials last a few days or weeks, maybe months in really extreme cases. It often takes new ministers months to merely get up to speed on their brief, let alone work out what should be done and how to actually pass legislation. Everyone would spend 90% of their time just working out how the process works, then they'd leave and it'd start all over again.
• Ease of manipulating the legislators. Combine ignorance, apathy and a strong resistance to even being there at all (they're being forced!), and what you get is people finding ways to outsource the work as much as possible. If you think lobbyists writing laws is a problem with professional politicians, that'd be nothing compared to unprofessional ones who even in the absolute best case will have no idea what they're doing and need all the help they can get. If you try and block external lobbyists, all you do is fully empower internal lobbyists (e.g. civil servants with an agenda).
Sortition could maybe work in a very libertarian state in which there are very few laws or welfare programs, and so the average group of legislators don't need to do much and can master the process quickly. In the past politicians were often part time, in some parts of the world this still happens at the local level. But if you want something at the scale of the US government it seems completely unworkable. Even with hundreds of full time professional legislators they still outsource huge amounts of lawmaking to executive agencies. Sortition would just set that to be 100% and there'd be no accountability.
• Skiving. People don't want to be torn from their lives and careers to do something else against their will. In the jury system this shows up as people deliberately trying to be excluded, which isn't that hard.
• Length of time required. Jury trials last a few days or weeks, maybe months in really extreme cases. It often takes new ministers months to merely get up to speed on their brief, let alone work out what should be done and how to actually pass legislation. Everyone would spend 90% of their time just working out how the process works, then they'd leave and it'd start all over again.
• Ease of manipulating the legislators. Combine ignorance, apathy and a strong resistance to even being there at all (they're being forced!), and what you get is people finding ways to outsource the work as much as possible. If you think lobbyists writing laws is a problem with professional politicians, that'd be nothing compared to unprofessional ones who even in the absolute best case will have no idea what they're doing and need all the help they can get. If you try and block external lobbyists, all you do is fully empower internal lobbyists (e.g. civil servants with an agenda).
Sortition could maybe work in a very libertarian state in which there are very few laws or welfare programs, and so the average group of legislators don't need to do much and can master the process quickly. In the past politicians were often part time, in some parts of the world this still happens at the local level. But if you want something at the scale of the US government it seems completely unworkable. Even with hundreds of full time professional legislators they still outsource huge amounts of lawmaking to executive agencies. Sortition would just set that to be 100% and there'd be no accountability.
Let's randomly summon citizens to serve brief terms as legislators. It's less crazy than it sounds and even if it weren't it still sounds better than what we've got. For the people by the people. You're already destined to be judged by such a group in the court of law. I offer that sequestered citizen legislators would perform their function radically better than our current system
> Let's randomly summon citizens to serve brief terms as legislators.
There's a question of supporting families while spouses get called up. One thing that helps a draft is the low percentage of late teen parents.
There's a question of supporting families while spouses get called up. One thing that helps a draft is the low percentage of late teen parents.
I'm thinking the terms would be several weeks max similar to jury duty. Families could be sequestered with them and could definitely work around civic pillars like school and harvest or tourism seasons maybe
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Hi HN, I've been thinking about this for months now and with each pass I find myself more enamored with it as a mode of achieving representative democracy. Interested to hear your thoughts. I think this would be an entire constitutional re-write if implemented, but I am optimistic that random sequestered groups of our peers would work quite well as legislative representatives and do a decent job in earnest. Maybe each law would have an expiration date with varying lengths determined by degree of consensus. E.g foundational rights should consistently yield 100% support of Freedom of speech and would be due to renew once a decade while novel laws with smaller pluralities could be briefly trialed and discarded by default if not successful
The word for this is sortition. It does have an interesting history. I like the idea, but I'd want to see it on a smaller scale before committing to it. Maybe a city or one of the smaller states.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition
Thanks for this. This is going to be a nice Wikipedia walk trailhead :)
I'm drawn to randomness as it's elegant, simple and wholesome. By the people for the people and being judged by a jury of peers in court also seemed to suggest a comfort in vesting power to ordinary citizens briefly as needed.
What really sold me is how this would obviate the need for election season polling and the tired prediction estimation and pontification for all those months leading up to elections.
Power and elected office almost certainly corrupts as well. Having brief and rare opportunities to perform this as an honor and duty would bring out the best in people and surface voices and considerations that would better reflect the concerns of the common people.
Idk it just seems like a nicer idea every time i come back to it. Most people here are good people. Yet we're governed by a consortium of the absolute worst (ironically this appears to be completely bipartisan).
Anyways thanks for sharing sortition and it's history here :) this is exactly what I was hoping to find in the discussion and why I enjoy HN
I'm drawn to randomness as it's elegant, simple and wholesome. By the people for the people and being judged by a jury of peers in court also seemed to suggest a comfort in vesting power to ordinary citizens briefly as needed.
What really sold me is how this would obviate the need for election season polling and the tired prediction estimation and pontification for all those months leading up to elections.
Power and elected office almost certainly corrupts as well. Having brief and rare opportunities to perform this as an honor and duty would bring out the best in people and surface voices and considerations that would better reflect the concerns of the common people.
Idk it just seems like a nicer idea every time i come back to it. Most people here are good people. Yet we're governed by a consortium of the absolute worst (ironically this appears to be completely bipartisan).
Anyways thanks for sharing sortition and it's history here :) this is exactly what I was hoping to find in the discussion and why I enjoy HN
I would think it would also have the beneficial effect of incentivizing a high level of truly good education for everyone in the society, as well as incentivizing greater equality.
+1 to encouraging an equal and educated society. You'd definitely want each batch of random citizens to be well informed and equipped to perform the legislative function.
Sortition (the formal term for this) is very attractive, because it seems it would eliminate corruption and other political ills. The problem is that the bureaucracy (he part of the executive branch that has some legislative power) would grow, become more corrupt itself, and become very effective at manipulating the citizen-legislators. I don't think you can eliminate the Federal or State bureaucracies without also parallelizing the legislative process.
Now, don't get me wrong, sortition may improve things for a time. But like code, people figure out how to take advantage of laws. Re-writing the US Constitution on a regular basis is very risky; instead, SCOTUS changes it's opinion on what the Constitution means periodically; it's like updating the interpreter's code instead of changing user-submitted code.
You might also be interested in the districting method in which you draw district boundaries through the middle of high-population areas. Half the population would be on either side of each boundary. You keep subdividing until you have as many districts as needed. (Sorry, I don't remember the name for this, but it was the best option I could find when I last looked into this topic more than a decade ago.)
Now, don't get me wrong, sortition may improve things for a time. But like code, people figure out how to take advantage of laws. Re-writing the US Constitution on a regular basis is very risky; instead, SCOTUS changes it's opinion on what the Constitution means periodically; it's like updating the interpreter's code instead of changing user-submitted code.
You might also be interested in the districting method in which you draw district boundaries through the middle of high-population areas. Half the population would be on either side of each boundary. You keep subdividing until you have as many districts as needed. (Sorry, I don't remember the name for this, but it was the best option I could find when I last looked into this topic more than a decade ago.)
> You keep subdividing until you have as many districts as needed. (Sorry, I don't remember the name for this, but it was the best option I could find when I last looked into this topic more than a decade ago.)
It's called the SplitLine Algorithm. Here is what 2010 US would look like under it - https://rangevoting.org/SplitLR.html - It has some issues. like grouping people who are far apart together. (i.e., someone in rural Colorado gets grouped in with someone in downtown Denver)
I was always a fan of the "compactness" criteria, where you draw the most compact (circle like) districts possible. Like this - https://bdistricting.com/2010/
It's called the SplitLine Algorithm. Here is what 2010 US would look like under it - https://rangevoting.org/SplitLR.html - It has some issues. like grouping people who are far apart together. (i.e., someone in rural Colorado gets grouped in with someone in downtown Denver)
I was always a fan of the "compactness" criteria, where you draw the most compact (circle like) districts possible. Like this - https://bdistricting.com/2010/
Or just stop radical policies that lays the groundwork for demagouges and populists?