We don't even need elections.. What we really need is

[SoCalDem]

a National Sweepstakes/Lottery...held every 4 years.

Ed McMahon is still around.. We could get Publishers' Clearinghouse to run the thing.

Applications sent all over the US...boldly announcing.. YOU MAY ALREADY BE A WINNER!!!

Imagine your surprise when you "SEND IT IN"...the balloon truck arrives ..... You appear at your doorstep in jammies, only to find out that YOU...YES YOU!! are now a congressperson/senator.

Grand Prize... 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

No messy campaigning
No time-consuming flesh pressing
No hassling people for money
No lobbyists jockeying for position to offer you a Pago-Pago golf outing
No mass consumption of rubber chicken dinners

We couldn't have WORSE representatives, and Lord KNOWS, we might get BETTER....

[fob]

1. Perfect, except you would have to leave off party affiliation otherwise

all the Donkey stickers would go through the shredder and we'd be left with a bunch of freepin repukes!

[NorCalDem]

2. How do you ensure....

that the people chosen are truly "representative" of the population as a whole. How do you prove that the lotteries are not excluding poor people, gays, minorities, women, etc. I think elections ARE the way to go, we just need serious help in finding someway to actually have democratic elections. You can do away with many of the other problems you say we have (which we do) through means other than doing away with elections (such as campaign finance reform, strict guidelines as to how campaigns may be run, equal funding for all parties including third and fourth and fifth parties, etc.) The lottery system is amusing and somewhat optimistic at first, but I think it would be easier to fix the lottery than to fix an election (and that's already happened at least twice in our history).

[SoCalDem]

3. I see that I left out an important piece of the "puzzle"

:sarcasm:

[NorCalDem]

4. It's cool

The lottery would be nice, but only if we had an enlightened society.

[ThoughtCriminal]

5. Could we do worse?

Those Bond villians are even starting to look good.

[SoCalDem]

6. Nope.. Aunt Betty from St Louis would make a better senator

than most who are there now:)