Random selection is necessary to create stable meritocratic institutions

The technical term is sortition. And it is my pet unorthodox political position. The legislature should be replaced with an assembly of citizens picked by lottery.

With a little back-of-the-envelope math, this would mean that congress would contain:

> 9 members with IQs under 70 (i.e. mentally handicapped) > 52 members with IQs under 85 > 217 members at or under an IQ of 100 > 370 members with an IQ below the (presumptive) current congressional average of ~115

Congress is terrible, but it's hard to imagine it could be improved by making it less intelligent.

If you could incorporate the OP's point about limited eligibility and "directly select candidates at random for positions from an eligibility pool", then a "random" process would likely be superior to elections.

If you have fifty bright and highly competent people, I'm skeptical that adding fifty idiots is going to make much of a difference. Most idiots will accept meritocratic authority if they can be convinced that their needs are taken into account (which they should). Some will obstruct, but probably not enough to significantly derail anything, and the good-faith idiots will bring information and perspectives that wouldn't be considered if they weren't there, so they aren't exactly useless.

In fact, I would argue that idiots in elected bodies are a lot more likely to do damage than random idiots, because they are more likely to be narcissists, and being elected boosts their sense of self-worth. And of course, the most damage is often caused by the most intelligent of them, because the main problem is acting in bad faith, not a lack of wits.