Wise Democracy Victoria

In our experience with Wisdom Councils, random selection is a key mechanism for taking democracy beyond our current system which is gridlocked by big money, partisan interests, fundamentalist ideologies, etc., etc.  Ran across this excellent booklet exploring some of the history and application of random selection ... also known as sortition.  A digital copy is available for free download.

Sorted: Civic lotteries and the Future of Public Participation
Oliver Dowlen
http://www.masslbp.com/publications.php
In 2004 and 2006, two major democratic experiments took place in Canada's first and third most populous provinces. Two years later, this pamphlet explores the impact of Ontario and British Columbia's first Citizens' Assemblies by examining the premise on which each assembly was based: the use of sortition, or a "civic lottery" to select citizens to participate in a binding public process.

By examining the use of civic lotteries through history - a tradition that remains at the core of our judicial system - this pamphlet explains how sortition can lower the barrier to political participation and extend a meaningful new franchise to citizens wishing to serve their communities. Against a backdrop of institutional and political stagnation, Sorted: Civic lotteries and the future of public participation makes the case for reviving a neglected democratic tradition - one that works in partnership with existing institutions and elected legislators to create a more powerful and direct role for citizens.