I agree, tests have their uses.  Like any kind of constraint, they can be used to diminish the search space to increase the desired yield.  When devised and administered fairly, they can go a long way toward leveling a playing field (or excluding the crazies).<p>For example, if we want to exclude congress(wo)men who are powermad egomaniacs, we start by asking knowledgable sources to rank candidates by lust, greed, and vanity, then exclude from random selection all those who fall below a certain threshold.  Voila, no more psychos (golddiggers) joining the the Washington Elite.<p>The lovely part of Sortition is that with a large number of fair &amp; knowledgable &#x27;rankers&#x27; (or &#x27;standardized tests&#x27;) it&#x27;s basically impossible to game the system.<p>So I vote &#x27;yea&#x27; for Sortition.