I will not bet in this market myself.

Edit: I changed phrasing slightly after bets were placed, to emphasize that resolution will be YES even if one single government would be chosen via sortition. If this is opposite to the original understanding of participants, I will refund.

Resolution details

This market will resolve as YES if before 2060, any general elections for government (e.g. parliamentary or presidential) within the European Union or United States are replaced by sortition. It does not matter in which precise form sortition is introduced, as long as:

• The chosen members serve a governing role

• Their selection is currently (August 2023) done via elections.

• The new process qualifies as sortition (see Wikipedia link below for more details).

If no example of such a change of process can be demonstrated within the European Union or United States, the market resolves NO.

Some edge cases:

• If sortition is introduced temporarily (e.g. as part of an experiment), the market will still resolve YES, regardless of whether the process change is rolled back at a later stage.

• If sortition is planned, but never truly implemented, this will not prompt a YES resolution.

• If governments decide to set up advisory councils or other committee forms that are constructed using a sortition process, this would not count as the selected individuals being government officials. Such an example would therefore not prompt a YES resolution.

• If the European Union and/or United States cease to exist, the question applies to whichever political unities have replaced them on their current territories.

Background reasoning

Amidst growing concerns about contemporary liberal democracies, sortition has repeatedly been offered as a way to resolve polarisation and factionalism among representatives, while simultaneously decreasing the gap between government and governed. As democracies attempt to adapt to the 21st century, it is likely some will experiment with new forms of choosing their officials.

Further reading

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition

https://www.amazon.com/Against-Elections-David-Van-Reybrouck/dp/1847924220

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/21/opinion/elections-democracy.html

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