I meant <i>could</i> work, as in the place where it actually did work. I wouldn&#x27;t yet argue that mass exclusion is necessary so that it <i>can</i> work.<p>Whether sortition <i>can</i> work in a large, inclusive, and diverse society is an interesting question. Democracy can only work in a high-trust environment where people don&#x27;t expect their political rivals to say, have them murdered or nationalize major industries. The expansion of enfranchisement in the U.S. (at least) has also coincided with the marginalization of very extreme political movements, like Communism.<p>Say you have an electorate with a very radical far-left or far-right minority that is anathema to the rest of the citizenry? In an electoral democracy, the minority would be excluded in elections (in a first-past-the-post system) or by inclusion as a clear minority (in proportional representation). In a sortitive democracy, it seems like they would have to be excluded from citizenship, or the government would have to have to be large and diffuse enough that the damage of insane or dangerous people could be constrained by the rest of society.<p>When people are introduced to the idea of sortition, mostly they are shocked by the idea. Because what if you randomly choose a schizophrenic or Hitler to put in charge of the nuclear weapons? I think you have to encourage this tactic at a more familiar level—rather than a group of friends voting on a restaurant, allowing one person to pick after drawing straws. Which, surely, is not at all like giving them a professional military.