Random Sampling Democracy

[archerships]

I'm not sure it would result in "better" government, but I think it would result in a more representative government:

1. Select a random sampling of people from the population.
2. Potential candidates must get at least an 75% approval rating from at least 75% of the random sample within the campaign period.
3. The winner will be selected at random from the pool of candidates who meet the above criteria. If no candidate meets the above criteria, then the candidate will be selected at random from the top 3 candidates with the highest percent approval.
4. In order to run, candidates must pay for the random sample to be selected, as well as advertising costs.

Comments

nifty

[jdubois.livejournal.com]

Although the sample would have to be truly random. And the "parties" (democrats and republicans) could not have any say in it, leaving it more open to independants to run. And we could do away with the electoral college who thinks the common man is too stupid to vote.
But remember this could be a can of worms. Even though the selection of voters would be random it's scary how many people will do the wrong thing. Mob rule can be frightening. We have no good examples of mob rule in the past 20-30 yrs (my life-time) we've had a few riots etc, but we have not had true mob rule in our country. There are a lot of angry red-necks and a lot of angry people in general who do not vote because they feel it's a waste of their time. Imagine if you took a true random sample of our population, including all those people who have never bothered voting--scary. There are reasons people register, because the government knows if people could just walk in from anywhere and vote the whole system would be messed up.
Ok, I'm done now.