A Citizens' Initiative Review (CIR) is a small, relatively representative panel that deliberates on a ballot

initiative Popular initiative A popular initiative (also citizens' initiative) is a form of direct democracy by which a petition meeting certain hurdles can force a legal procedure on a proposition. In direct initiative, the proposition is put direct ...

referendum A referendum, plebiscite, or ballot measure is a Direct democracy, direct vote by the Constituency, electorate (rather than their Representative democracy, representatives) on a proposal, law, or political issue. A referendum may be either bin ...

to be decided in an upcoming election in order to produce a useful (typically one-page) summary for voters.

Process

The panelists are chosen through means such as

random sampling In this statistics, quality assurance, and survey methodology, sampling is the selection of a subset or a statistical sample (termed sample for short) of individuals from within a statistical population to estimate characteristics of the who ...

and stratified sampling to be demographically representative. This often involves paying for the time and travel of the roughly two dozen participants. While not quite a

citizens' assembly Citizens' assembly is a group of people selected by lottery from the general population to deliberate on important public questions so as to exert an influence. Other names and variations of deliberative mini-publics include citizens' jury, ci ...

according to John Rountree and Nicole Curato, they note it shares many of the same characteristics. A trained moderator oversees the discussions. Over a few days, panelists deliberate among themselves and question experts and advocates on all sides of the initiative. The panelists write a statement in a form that can be made available by including it in the voter's pamphlet or guide. This statement summarizes the best arguments, pros, and cons and lists the number of panelists who recommended voting for and against the initiative.

Purpose

A Citizens' Initiative Review aims to strengthen the quality and impact of the public voice in elections and government decisions. It helps to fill an information gap when much of the discourse might come from advertisements or spokespersons from a campaign. Under a CIR, voters are sent a one-pager of citizens' findings about facts as well as pros and cons about the proposed initiative after careful study and deliberation. Vote tallies of the participants' final position on the issue have fallen out of favor given the groups often aren't large enough to be statistically significant.

Evaluation

Academic research reported that CIR panelists achieved high-quality deliberation. Voters became aware of those deliberations through voters' pamphlets and found the statement to be helpful to their decisions, and voter knowledge about the initiatives increased. The panelists themselves developed new attitudes about the political process and their capabilities.

In practice

The state of

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

created the first permanent Citizens' Initiative Review in 2010, while pilots have been run in places including

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

, Sion (Switzerland) and Finland. Funding has not been permanently allocated in Oregon, so the application has been limited to one ballot measure on the years when funding has been provided.

References

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