Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

You should check out the voting process for electing the Doge of Venice:

https://www.theballotboy.com/electing-the-doge



There’s some fairly deep statistical analysis out there on the Doge voting. To my memory it was only subverted once, leading to some changes. The analysis I remember concludes they have like one more round than needed to meet goals of the voting in terms of fairness, representation and difficulty of capture. Anyway, it’s a very interesting bit of voting history that lasted a long time.


This is a crazy process. Although I feel like I am a bit confused.

When they say “reduced by lot” then mean by a lottery? By that same original boy or something else?

They also talked about needing approval from electors, I assume that was from the previous small pool. Can’t exactly determine who they mean.


Best not to overthink think. It’s the best random number generator they thought they had. Even ours suck.

They just wanted a member of the Aristocrat to be in charge is the point. An inauguration validated with whatever appears like merit (but the whole thing is rigged since only one type can ever win - the aristocrat (the entire pool is aristocrats)).

Self selected group :)

Have fun with Doge.


It was gratuitously complex the better to hide sleight-of-hand by the powers of the day.


Sounds easier than getting work done in a corporate who got an agile consultancy in.




Consider applying for YC's Winter 2026 batch! Applications are open till Nov 10

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: