The Trouble With Elections

A new book from ‘recovering politician’ Terry Bouricius, on why everything we thought we knew about democracy is wrong

We are very fortunate to be neighbors in Burlington with the singular Terry Bouricius, a pioneer of third-party politics in Vermont who has now become an internationally recognized theorist of democracy beyond elections. He has been a great source of advice and inspiration for us as we hone in on our mission at Democracy Creative, so we were thrilled when he asked us to help him finally bring his book, “The Trouble With Elections,” to the public as a series on our Substack.

This book has been in the works for nearly 10 years, and draws on Terry’s experience as a local and state politician in Vermont as well as more years spent as an election reform policy analyst for the organization FairVote. Terry has essentially concluded that elections are a poor way of achieving the main of goal of democracy —government by the people — and that public decisions would be better made by panels of everyday citizens chosen by democratic lotteries.

While the goal is ultimately to see this book published as, well, a book, we decided a great first step would to share the manuscript in regular installments here on Substack. We hope that readers will freely offer their feedback in the comments section as the posts comes out. Expect the first posts to come out in the next few days.

For more information, check out www.troublewithelections.com.

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