The most common form of sortition is juries. Recently in the United States anonymous juries have started appearing. The media do not like them, as they believe it fosters secrecy in the court system and violates the principle of being tried by your peers. But is there a role for anonymous sortition in politics?

The first fully anonymous jury in the United States was in 1977 when druglord Larry Barnes was tried in New York City. The reason for making the jury anonymous was fear of retribution from an organized crime figure's operation.

Political retribution can be a fear for ordinary citizens, and for many is a valid reason why they would never want to get involved in the political process. Unfortunately, the present state of politics and media means that the public and private life become one; with smearing a common tactic.

It is interesting to note, as the citizen commenteriat have increased in power and influence, this tactic has been used by opposing commenteriat as well. The Domenech and Armstrong scandals or affairs being good examples.

By sortition an individual can be thrust directly into the political process, which is a positive for the public process, but for many, maybe feared as a personal negative.

For small groups of sortitionists that would be taking a very public role, such as Alan's Citizen's Assembly who would appoint a President, or Adam's highly visible Queensland Legislative Council sortitionists , it would be difficult to promise any sort of anonymity.

The organised parties, using their wealth, influence and political knowledge, will most likely try to divide and conquer within the sortitionists.

Similar to the problem Labor found in the 1890s when it entered politics as the newly politically naive party. Labor responded by party discipline from the national executive being absolute. But what would sortitionists do?

It makes sense that sortition need not be compulsory. An individual needs to be able to opt out. This would allow them to be private, by avoiding public life.

The other option is to increase the franchise of the sortitionist body by using larger and larger numbers. This would dampen the statistical effects of a small body skewing the outcome, and not being representative of the people.

The problem with this is that it is impersonal. Obviously. Small bodies such as legislative ones, or committees deciding appointments, will need to be far more personal in their decision making.

An anonymous sortition body would work for the Ratification model I proposed however, where the ratifiers are an anonymous jury, chosen for each bill, and decide if the bill gets from the Parliament to the Governor-General.

The limitation being they do not make legislation, only judge it for its repugnance.

Political retribution and anonymity will most likely have an effect on whether individuals will get involved in political sortition. These issues will need to be explored in more detail.