My favorite passage from Ken MacLeod's novel Dark Light:

Drawing lots is fair, even if it sometimes throws up a freak result. With elections you’re actually building the minority problem right in at every level, and lots more with it – parties, money, fame, graft, just for starters. What chance would that leave ordinary people, what chance would we have of being heard or of making a difference? Elections are completely undemocratic, they’re downright antidemocratic. Everybody knows that!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sortition#a_fictio...