No. A democratic lottery only selects a group of representatives—like for Congress or state legislatures—not individual executives.

But citizens selected by lottery would be empowered to find qualified Presidents, Governors, and Mayors without parties or divisive campaigns.

Calling on expert testimony is a critical part of what representatives are supposed to do.

Because representatives selected by lottery don’t owe their position to any party or donor the way elected politicians do, they’re free to actually listen and learn from subject-matter experts and use that to inform their decision-making.

And just like current members of Congress and state legislatures, they’re supported in their service by knowledgeable staff who assist with crafting the details of policy. The role of the citizens is to represent our different values and priorities as Americans and to make the final call.

Campaign contributions are the primary way that politicians become corrupted by lobbyists and special interests.

But with a lottery, there are no campaigns. So this inherently prevents the outright buying of influence that elections make so easy to do.

And once representatives are selected and in office, lotteries further guard against corruption by enabling confidential voting.

When asked, 2/3 of Americans believe that selecting Congress through a democratic lottery would be better than elections.

And this has equal support across the political spectrum.

This data comes from a robust national survey conducted by one of the nation’s most respected polling companies, Survey USA. You can see the full results here.

Democratic lotteries have typically been pigeonholed in modern times as merely a way to inject public input into our current dysfunctional and distrusted political system, instead of being framed as a way to transform it.

For the first time ever, this film stands to change that.

Making the shift from elections to democratic lotteries at the highest levels of government will ultimately require federal constitutional change.

An amendment to the Constitution can be adopted through popular ratification if at least a majority of citizens sign in favor. This is because the citizenry is the ultimate sovereign authority in our republic. The citizenry’s constitutional authority was manifest in the ratification of the Constitution itself, which the founders put to the people to bypass the entrenched political interests of their day. An amendment that is popularly ratified would be effective immediately as the law of the land—beyond the constitutional authority of any politician or court.

This film is the first major step in a larger, long-term movement to build the broad and deep popular support necessary for popular ratification.