[chao-]

>but we can have it again with these incompetent, ignorant, appointee bureaucrats.

I agree with your sentiment completely, but do want to serve as a footnote on the sentence I am quoting: Being an "appointee" does not imply competence or incompetence on technological details. Being elected does not imply competence or incompetence on matters of technological details.

When the officials in charge of the decision are entirely elected, it is not as if they are elected because they have a technical pedigree, presented at DEF CON, or have a high score on leetcode. They are elected because of a myriad of complex factors, most of which relate to the prevailing cultural memes of the day. Heck they only stand for election based on a similar set of complex factors and impulses, and awareness of technological specifics is eternally low on the list.

I say this having known one low-level federal bureaucrat well (he might even qualify as part of the "deep state", if such a thing existed), and interacted with a few others in passing. In some ways they are ridiculously competent in their area of expertise. In other ways, they are depressingly in favor of the inertia of the status quo. But in all cases, I can't say that replacing their hiring process with an election would change a damned thing.