Designing a personal voting guide: A model for electoral deliberation online

Evidence from the Oregon Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR) shows the efficacy of a deliberative minipublic serving as a trusted information proxy for an electorate that votes on initiatives and referenda. This paper builds on that model by envisioning a decentralized online process that offers the function of the CIR without the planning and expense of convening the minipublic itself. The resulting model, which we call the Personal Voting Guide, draws on experiments in digital deliberation and provides a scalable process for generating key findings and pro/con arguments on referenda and initiatives, as well as guidance for choosing among parties or candidates. The proposed model addresses the same challenges that inspired the CIR by ensuring trustworthy, high-quality information and motivating voters to use that information before completing their ballots. It also emphasizes the potential for users to customize their voting guides on ballot issues, candidates, and parties based on varied political values, source perceptions, and tolerance for information complexity.

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Work Title Designing a personal voting guide: A model for electoral deliberation online
Access
Open Access
Creators
  1. John W Gastil
  2. Andrea Felicetti
Keyword
  1. Democratic innovation
  2. Digital voting guides
  3. Mass deliberation
  4. Public opinion
  5. Voter decision making
License CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike)
Work Type Article
Publisher
  1. The Information Society
Publication Date September 9, 2024
Publisher Identifier (DOI)
  1. https://doi.org/10.1080/01972243.2024.2399201
Deposited October 28, 2024

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Version 1
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  • Created
  • Updated
  • Updated Keyword, Publisher, Publisher Identifier (DOI), and 2 more Show Changes
    Keyword
    • Democratic innovation, Digital voting guides, Mass deliberation, Public opinion, Voter decision making
    Publisher
    • The Information Society
    Publisher Identifier (DOI)
    • https://doi.org/10.1080/01972243.2024.2399201
    Description
    • Evidence from the Oregon Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR) shows the efficacy of a deliberative minipublic serving as a trusted information proxy for an electorate that votes on initiatives and referenda. This paper builds on that model by envisioning a decentralized online process that offers the function of the CIR without the planning and expense of convening the minipublic itself. The resulting model, which we call the Personal Voting Guide, draws on experiments in digital deliberation and provides a scalable process for generating key findings and pro/con arguments on referenda and initiatives, as well as guidance for choosing among parties or candidates. The proposed model addresses the same challenges that inspired the CIR by ensuring trustworthy, high-quality information and motivating voters to use that information before completing their ballots. It also emphasizes the potential for users to customize their voting guides on ballot issues, candidates, and parties based on varied political values, source perceptions, and tolerance for information complexity.
    Publication Date
    • 2024-09-09
  • Added Creator John W Gastil
  • Added Creator Andrea Felicetti
  • Added Gastil_Felicetti_Info_Society_July_2024_Revision.docx
  • Updated License Show Changes
    License
    • https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
  • Published
  • Updated