Pieces published by both The New York Times and The Atlantic on Monday argued that America’s current election process is problematic and should be altered. You must have seen this coming – the left wants to do away with elections.

The New York Times piece, a guest essay originally titled “Elections Are Bad for Democracy,” by contributing opinion writer Adam Grant, went so far as to argue that American’s voting system should be replaced by a system of randomly choosing political leaders by lottery.

The Times removed the original headline for the piece and replaced it with “The Worst People Run for Office. It’s Time for a Better Way.”

In The Atlantic article, titled “Americans vote too much,” staff writer Jerusalem Demsas argued that there are too many elections in the United States and citizens can’t keep up with civic responsibility to vote in each one. (Fox News)

The Times guest essay proposed getting rid of voting altogether. Grant wrote, “On the eve of the first debate of the 2024 presidential race, trust in government is rivaling historic lows. Officials have been working hard to safeguard elections and assure citizens of their integrity. But if we want public office to have integrity, we might be better off eliminating elections altogether.”

Arguing for random selection of candidates to replace democratic elections, he stated, “People expect leaders chosen at random to be less effective than those picked systematically. But in multiple experiments led by the psychologist Alexander Haslam, the opposite held true. Groups actually made smarter decisions when leaders were chosen at random than when they were elected by a group or chosen based on leadership skill.”

Grant added, “A lottery would also improve our odds of avoiding the worst candidates in the first place. When it comes to character, our elected officials aren’t exactly crushing it.”

He then concluded the piece, stating, “As we prepare for America to turn 250 years old, it may be time to rethink and renew our approach to choosing officials. The lifeblood of a democracy is the active participation of the people. There is nothing more democratic than offering each and every citizen an equal opportunity to lead.”

New York Times Op-Ed Declares Elections ‘Bad For Democracy,’ Changes Headline After Online Mockery

By: Tristan Justice, The Federalist, August 23, 2023

We ‘might be better off eliminating elections altogether,’ argued Adam Grant, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania.

By: Tristan Justice, The Federalist, August 2023:

The New York Times published an op-ed this week declaring elections are “bad for democracy.”

“[W]e might be better off eliminating elections altogether,” argued Adam Grant, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, in the piece, which subsequently had its headline changed from “Elections are Bad for Democracy” to “The Worst People Run for Office. It’s Time for a Better Way,” hours after publication following online mockery. Despite the new title, the message remained unchanged.

According to Grant, elections are counterproductive to democratic governance. Grant claimed that randomly chosen leaders would be more effective and cited ancient Greece as his prime example, as if ruling an ancient city-state were comparable to managing global affairs in the 21st century.

If you think that sounds anti-democratic, think again. The ancient Greeks invented democracy, and in Athens many government officials were selected through sortition — a random lottery from a pool of candidates. In the United States, we already use a version of a lottery to select jurors. What if we did the same with mayors, governors, legislators, justices and even presidents?

“When you know you’re picked at random, you don’t experience enough power to be corrupted by it,” Grant added. “Instead, you feel a heightened sense of responsibility: I did nothing to earn this, so I need to make sure I represent the group well.“

If the author had ever examined the histories of recent lottery winners, he might rethink that claim. Lottery winners are more likely to declare bankruptcy than the average American within three to five years of winning, with nearly a third eventually doing so, according to Next Gen Personal Finance. Money — like power — goes to people’s heads.

While acknowledging random selection might “deprive us of the chance to select a leader with distinctive skills,” Grant was clear: “that’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

Grant made his “final” point that “voting also means no boundaries to gerrymander and no Electoral College to dispute.” In other words, no more objections to election results. Odd that this proposal would come two years after President Donald Trump raised concerns over how the 2020 presidential election was conducted instead of following Democrats’ objections in 2001, 2005, and 2017.

“Instead of questioning whether millions of ballots were counted accurately, we could watch the lottery live, just as we do with teams getting their lottery picks in the N.B.A. draft,” Grant wrote.

He warned against using elections “to roll the dice on the hopes of finding the best” candidates, as if the lottery system he proposes were not a way to “roll the dice” on who oversees one of the largest enterprises in human history: the federal government.