https://halva.proboards.com/post/3237
At least the Australian Federal Parliament and all the state parliaments apart from Queensland have bicameral legislatures. The demands of universal suffrage can therefore be met if only one of the two parliamentary chambers is based on universal suffrage. There are many disadvantages to universal suffrage and historically it has not applied everywhere in the parliamentary system. Experience during the COVID “pandemic” suggests that most people want to follow the dictates of what they perceive as authority and in many cases also to target their fellow citizens who are perceived (by “authority”) to be defying authority. It should not be unacceptable to accept this as a fact of life and try to find ways to minimize its negative consequences. Would providing an alternative to voting based on universal suffrage help towards achieving such an objective? Sortition (choosing politicians by means of a lottery) had a part to play in the ancient Athenian democracy and should be included among techniques to be given rational consideration. The most obvious relevant problem would be that it could result in the elevation of inappropriate people. This could be countered by having a court whose task is to identify not who would be appropriate to play a part in public life but who would NOT be appropriate. Citizens who feel they are called upon to be public figures (or propose somebody else for such a role) should be encouraged to state this publicly and then the court (with assistance from input from the general public) should decide who is to be excluded. Experience suggests that the population in any case is much better at saying what they don’t want than at saying what would be a good idea for implementation. The selection of the parliamentarians would then be made by sortition from among the eligible candidates. These candidates would comprise a second parliamentary chamber. The parliamentarians in this second chamber would speak as individuals, would be off limits to journalists and other would-be intermediaries and would communicate directly with the public and with their colleagues. There would continue to be the kind of politics and politicians with which we are now familiar but they would be competing for a mandate with the second chamber. Which chamber would make decisions and which would be advisory would be determined by the outcome of a referendum to be held every five years or other agreed period and there would be no other referenda. The political base of the second chamber would be comprised of people who have indicated that they do not wish to vote for the politicians and candidates in the first chamber and they would not be allowed to do so unless they made a decision to join or rejoin the electorate for the first chamber. This idea was first discussed among people of our acquaintance during the COVID lockdowns by participants in the World Freedom Alliance and is on the record, with further elaboration, at: https://halva.proboards.com/post/2531