Imagine a courtroom where the jurors ran for office, raised campaign money, and met privately with the prosecution. Terry Bouricius argues that is a fair description of how we make our laws — and that choosing lawmakers by lottery, as Athens did, is one possible fix.

Terry Bouricius has spent two decades pointing out that this is a fair description of how we make our laws. He would know, after having spent twenty years as an elected lawmaker in Vermont, then a decade at FairVote working to advance ideas like (the very sensible) ranked-choice voting.

But then he had an experience that had him question whether improving elections was the only way to improve democracy. In 2004, he testified before British Columbia’s Citizens’ Assembly — barkeepers, teachers and engineers chosen by lottery to redesign the province’s voting system. They met for months and produced a proposal. “A light bulb went off over my head,” he told me. “Wait a second. This is what democracy looks like.”