Tag Archives: venice

Mark Pack

Alternative Vote or Venetian Vote?

By Mark Pack | Thu 19th August 2010 - 10:20 am

Pah, who needs the Alternative Vote when you can go for the Venetian electoral system, as explained by The New Yorker:

Whenever the time came to elect a new doge of Venice, an official went to pray in St. Mark’s Basilica, grabbed the first boy he could find in the piazza, and took him back to the ducal palace. The boy’s job was to draw lots to choose an electoral college from the members of Venice’s grand families , which was the first step in a performance that has been called tortuous, ridiculous, and profound. Here is how it went,

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