The Republic of Venice developed that idea to a system of great complexity for electing the Doge, that included copious injections of randomness. There is an in

The Republic of Venice developed that idea to a system of great complexity for electing the Doge, that included copious injections of randomness. There is an interesting analysis of this protocol in a paper by HP laboratories, available here (pdf): http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/2007/HPL-2007-28R1.pdf http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/2007/HPL-2007-28R1.pdf