Talk:Sortition
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It is said that even the etymology of "ballot" reflects the role of sortition in ancient times, but someone needs to check the OED to make sure this is an accurate reflection.
Slection by lot: drawing straws, rolling dice, etc.
Slightly amplify the reference to "qualification" so that "random" sounds less silly.
[edit] Aristotle and classical analysis of sortition
The entry currently says that "Arguably, selection by lot is a more democratic process than election by vote, since sortition is less influenced by money and fame. Aristotle and other classical writers who discussed the subject took this view."
While there are statemnts by Aristotle (Politics, book 4, chap. 9) saying that sortition is democratic, I am unaware of any specific argument offered by him for why this is so. The same, as far as I know, is true for Montesquieu and Rousseau. All these authors seem to take it for granted that sortition is democratic, but fail to provide any arguments. I think the entry should be changed to correctly describe this situation. --Drono 04:14, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Text from Allotment
The following text was on Allotment, which was looking nothing like the dab page it claimed to me. It seems a bit too good just to delete, so I'm putting in here for someone to merge into this article if thought appropriate. Cheers --Pak21 11:30, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
Allotment (also known as sortition) is a method of selection by some form of lottery such as drawing coloured pebbles from a bag. It was commonly used in Ancient Greek Democracy. It is thought that allotment originally developed from the use of oracles to divine the will of the gods, but by the time of Ancient Greeks like Herodotus it was a key part of the the Athenian political system.
Athenian Democracy developed out of a notion of isonomia (equality of political rights), and Allotment was the principle way of achieving this fairness[1]. Greek "Democracy" (literally meaning rule by the people) was literally run by the people: the administration was in the hands of committees allotted from the people. Although it may seem strange to those used to Liberal Democracy the Athenian Greeks considered Elections to be undemocratic[2]. This was because citizens chosen on merit or popularity contradicted the democratic principle of equality of all citizenry. In addition allotment prevented the corrupt practise of buying votes as no one could know who would be selected as a magistrate or to sit on the Jury.
Athenian Democracy used allotment to select around 90%[2] of the magistrates for their governing committees. Only in exceptional cases such as generals of the army (strategoi) did Athenians vote for candidates (even Greeks saw the benefit of selecting their generals on merit rather than principle[2]). Their huge juries (typically 501) were allotted using sophisticated machines to ensure jurors were fairly allocated. These juries not only tried cases, handed down sentences (see the trial of Socrates), but could also overturn laws passed by the citizen's assembly.
Allotment is today restricted mainly to the selection of jurors in Anglo-Saxon legal systems like the UK and US.
For the use of lots in divination see Cleromancy.
[edit] Fairness
Selection bias and the potential incorrect math, sortition is not certain to be fair and any statement alledging it's fairnss should refer to respected source on statistics/probability applications. i kan reed 00:54, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
