This observance being done, the election of the new Doge could commence - though perhaps 'selection' is a better word for the long series of lotteries and ballots put in place to safeguard the process from corruption. Venice was a republic, yet its electoral process was far from wholly democratic: only members of the Great Council, consisting of 2,500 or so male members of ancient Venetian families listed in the so-called Golden Book, could participate. From this body thirty were chosen by lottery, of whom none could be related, and then these thirty were further winnowed by lot to a Committee of Nine; the Nine elected forty more, who were reduced to a Committee of Twelve by lot, and given the chance to elect twenty-five more; they in turn were reduced to nine and elected forty-five who were reduced by lot to a Committee of Eleven. The Eleven chose forty-one, none of which could have been on the previous electoral committees (the Nine, the Twelve, and the Eleven), who (finally) elected the Doge. At each of these stages each of the candidates had to carry a healthy majority of the vote. The design of the system made it incredibly difficult to rig, because of the lotteries and the rules to prevent any one person (or family) from participating at different stages of the process, and also because it was so complex it would be hard to know where to start. All the same, in 1521 it was floated during the election to double the number of electoral steps, just in case. This was the mode that Venice, the mercantile republic, par exellence, had developed to inoculate itself against the monopolisation of power. pp219-220