by Michael Vazquez

May 04, 2026
from AEON Website

Is democracy without elections possible?

Could a lottery be better?

Dig into sortition, a system where officials are selected via lottery, and how it could address the problems of modern democracies.

Elections are tools that ensure a nation's citizens all have an equal political voice. But these so-called "great equalizers" are often plagued by corruption, partisan divides, and uninformed voters.

Which is why some of democracy's first and most famous practitioners used a different approach:

sortition...!

We explore how this system could address modern democracy's biggest problems.

For most people today, public elections are synonymous with democracy. However, between 508 and 322 BCE, Athenians favored a lottery system known as 'sortition'.

They largely believed it to be more fair, representative and responsive to the public interest than elections, which are often influenced by money and can foster destructive political polarization.

In this animation, Michael Vazquez, associate director of the Parr Center for Ethics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, breaks down both the potential of lottery-based systems and their limits.

In particular, he highlights an updated lottery system conceived by the US philosopher Alex Guerrero, designed to address flaws in earlier models and some of the most pressing problems in contemporary electoral politics.

 

Video

Video by TED-Ed

Director: Avi Ofer

Writer: Michael Vazquez

Producer: Sazia Afrin