---
authors:
- Anonymous
categories:
- Politics
date: 2022-02-15 00:00:00
summary: Sortition is the selection of public officials or jurors using a random representative
  sample, minimizing factionalism and prioritizing deliberation on policy decisions.
tags:
- governance
- sortition
- democracy
- random selection
title: Sortition
---

# Sortition

> In governance, sortition (also known as selection by lottery, selection by lot, allotment, demarchy, stochocracy, aleatoric democracy, democratic lottery, and lottocracy) is the selection of public officials or jurors using a random representative sample.[1][2][3] This minimizes factionalism, since those selected to serve can prioritize deliberating on the policy decisions in front of them instead of campaigning.[4] In ancient Athenian democracy, sortition was the traditional and primary method for appointing political officials, and its use was regarded as a principal characteristic of democracy.[5][6] Sortition is often classified as a method for both direct democracy and deliberative democracy. 

## Further reading

- [Sortition — Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition)
- [Equality by Lot](https://equalitybylot.com/) — blog tracking sortition research and practice globally


## See also

- [Citizens' Assembly](citizens-assembly.md)
- [Isegoria](isegoria.md)
- [Cognitive Division of Labour](cognitive-division-of-labour.md)
- [Sortition Foundation](../organisations/sortition-foundation.md)
- [newDemocracy Foundation](../organisations/newdemocracy.md)
- [MASS LBP](../organisations/mass-lbp.md)
- [G1000](../organisations/g1000.md)
- [Healthy Democracy](../organisations/healthy-democracy.md)
- [What if we replaced politicians with randomly selected people?](../../blog/posts/2018-06-18.md) — Brett Hennig TED talk, discussed at DOD 2018
- [Your Party is using sortition](../../blog/posts/2025-12-07-your-party-is-using-sortition.md) — UK case study, 2025
- [Victoria's Upper House inquiry: the case for a citizens' assembly](../../blog/posts/2026-05-24-vic-upper-house-citizens-assembly.md)
- [Isegoria: how citizens' juries deliver it (Gruen, 2020)](../../blog/posts/2020-03-20.md) — the by-lot vs by-election argument, and the Athenian Boule
- [Citizens' Democracy (Gruen & Hofkirchner, 2017)](../../blog/posts/2017-08-21-podcast.md)