# Sortition

Sortition is the random selection of people for positions of authority from a general pool. Those selected may serve individually or in juries and typically have the time and resources to become well informed on the questions they are chosen to decide.

**Input:** census of community members, randomization method, appropriate training

**Output:** advisory recommendation or binding decision

## History

Sortition was a basic feature of Athenian democracy. During the medieval and early-modern period it was used for governing some Italian city-states, such as Venice and Florence.

In recent political systems, it is used most commonly for the formation of citizen juries for trials. But it has had [other scattered uses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition#Modern_application) in recent history, from Amish communities to national constitutional reform processes.

## Feedback loops

### Sensitivities

* Encourages deliberation insulated from external pressures
* Can enable juries to gain a level of focused expertise on the issue at hand greater than what would be possible for the population as a whole or elected representatives

### Oversights

* May not be fully representative of the population
* May enable groupthink and negative internal dynamics among selected juries, especially in the absence of a [secret ballot](secret_ballot)

## Implementations

### Communities

* Citizen juries in judicial trials
* "[Deliberative democracy](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=deliberative democracy china)" processes in China

### Tools

## Further resources

* [Sortition Foundation](https://www.sortitionfoundation.org/)
* "[Sortition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition)" on Wikipedia