Re: Abridged summary of election-by-jury@googlegroups.com - 1 update in 1 topic

[Clay S]

I had initially thought of maybe trying for judges which would seem appropriate, but in many states including Oregon, State Law says they have to be elected, in language which essentially forces a normal election by the general public. 

Maybe a county district attorney could be useful, but we probably want to start in smaller cities where it's much less costly to get the signatures to get it on the ballot, as well as running the campaign.

One baby steps approach I had considered was using it for commissions. I don't know if they are competitive enough to make an election process meaningful, but ordinarily they are appointed by various people in city government. Imagine if you said we're going to have four seats on this commission that are elected by jury. Not only are you starting with something small stakes that normally isn't elected anyway, you're hybridizing it. 

If we go straight for city councils, I'm thinking we would want to do something like add a few seats and make those elected by jury, so that the existing seats are still directly elected and I will feel less drastic to voters.