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14.2 Electing Members of US House of Representatives by Sortition
If their Colleague System works, states will obtain
much greater control over their own affairs. When a large number of
states adopt the System, different states undoubtedly will have worked
out a large variety of different selections of duties, number of
colleagues, terms of employment agreements, etc. Nevertheless the states
would be in an excellent position to make an important and
desirable change in government structure and practice, beneficial to
themselves and to the whole country, based on the US Constitution.
If 38 states (3/4ths) could find and remain in agreement on
wording during the adoption process, they would achieve a Constitutional
Amendment, the law of the land, even if throughout the adoption process
there is little support for, and likely much hostility to, the Amendment
proposal from the Congress and the Administration in Washington.
Much can be done when the states have that power.
Need for Direct Election of Members to the US House of Representatives
A Citizen Legislature, a book written by
Ernest Callenbach and Michael Phillips in 1985 made a strong case for
choosing members of the House by sortition, or selection by lottery,
used by the Athenians to choose representatives for two centuries of
city-state government. Callenbach
and Phillips made an impressive case that sortition would make democracy
work better than elections. If
sortition was a good idea then, it is a much better and more needed
reform now. Here are ten
problems with national elections that would be eliminated by
sortition.
The Tragedy of US Democracy -- Deteriorating Validity of National Elections
Democracy in the US seems to hang by a thread that
is weakening year by year. Each
of the following ten items attacks our national well-being, and
threatens to subvert and nullify electoral democracy.
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The seemingly inevitable corruption of official campaign financing reforms,
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the corruption of post-election governance as a result of increasing strong-arm, smiling-face campaign fund raising,
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newly available computerized optimization software perfecting the art of gerrymandering so that many districts and states can be locked-in for one party or the other,
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The near total lock-out of third party candidates by the steady, over-the-years machinations of the two (major) party leaders, assisted by elected officials and the mainstream media, culminating in total effective electoral control of Congress members and elected Administration officials.
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The shortening of information feedback loops during the campaign (including more accurate, quick, sophisticated polling aimed at manipulating voters) employed by both parties to determine how to use their enormous campaign funds to best advantage. The outcomes in contested elections tend toward statistical ties producing disarray and contention.
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The ability of successful politicians to mislead the public on their real governance intentions: namely to legislate, regulate, and shape government policy and actions so as to satisfy their key financial backers and to generally ignore the needs of "ordinary" people.
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Unlawful, corrupt, and unfair removal of names from voter registration lists and other obstacles discouraging and preventing eligible individuals from voting, such as confusing ballots and self-contradictory ballot instructions.
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The mainstream media perceived need to accommodate, through editorializing and news reporting, high officials who (a) illegally or immorally decide to keep secrets from the public and (b) grant access and interviews to supportive reporters, editors, anchors, and moguls and punish those who are uncooperative, while rewarding supporters with beneficial regulatory relief. These relationships have resulted in the nearly-unreported gutting of the Fairness Doctrine and the astonishing concentration of media ownership.
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Obsolete, undemocratic features of the U.S. Constitution, as amended – including the role of the electoral college.
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Fraudulent and corrupt vote-counting that can completely ignore enough legitimate ballots to overturn voters choices by rigging voting machines and, even worse, when the fraud is done on touch-screen and other electronic terminals by hidden, false-counting software. Detecting this kind of fraud, finding the perpetrators, and holding them accountable can be almost impossible.
Opportunities
If in fact someday several states adopt the colleague system, the proposal for A Citizens Legislature, would be only one of many ideas that, looking to the future, might seem attractive to these early adopters. No one can judge today at this early point whether a sortition concept or any other proposed government reform will be needed or obtainable. Yet, improvement of the national election process and procedures seems an issue that likely will get increasing public attention.
Aware of the 10 problems with national elections described above (The Tragedy of US Democracy – Deteriorating Validity of Elections) by late 2000, I had written a proposal for a "Best Practices System for National Elections" appeared, as of 9/15/05, and is available in this website as 13.1 Best Practices System for National Elections.
I believe that, as summarized above in (10) Fraudulent and corrupt vote-counting, this WFS article was the first detailed description of the danger of false and politically manipulated vote-counts produced by powerful software, hidden by password protection, that could be inserted into any of the two million electronic voting machines required for a fully "modernized" national voting system. Voting machines must be updated in a short window of time before election day by technicians, who may be employees of private companies hired to operate, maintain, or manage these new systems as part of a process to obtain final voting results from the data entered on election day in the up-to two hundred thousand precincts or voting places of the country. These companies obtain government voting-management contracts and maintain that under these contracts their software is proprietary and, so far, will not reveal the source code or any information publicly about the potential for hidden embedded software. Government authorities responsible for approving these contracts should be held criminally accountable for permitting the public's voting preferences to be completely subverted by these voting-management contractors.
Conclusions
The first step, the colleague system, potentially can evolve into the true solution for preventing election fraud and manipulative practices by replacing elections with sortition.
Key leaders of each state can and should consider seriously on its own merits the value to their state of adopting a Colleague System.
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