Citizen Deliberative Councils
Jock Gill points to an article from a year ago in which Tom Atlee compiles a fascinating set of links about Citizen Deliberative Councils: “A Citizen Deliberative Council (CDC) is a temporary council of citizens convened to deliberate about public concerns (either about a specific issue or the general state of the community and its future) and to provide guidance for officials and the public.” (Quote from here.) Atlee writes that in British Columbia, Canada, one Citizens Assembly “on electoral reform, been given the power to put a proposal directly to a vote by the people in a regular election.”
He describes it in an email that’s circulating:
This Assembly was formed with 160 randomly selected citizens charged with reviewing existing and innovative voting systems. After ten months of study, reviewing hundreds of written submissions, holding public hearings, hearing from experts, and deliberating together, they finally announced their recommendations in October 2004 (see the newsletter below). It is quite clear these citizens really love the new system they’ve designed. It’s a combination of instant runoff voting and proportional representation (see notes below) which they have customized for their province and named BC-STV, short for British Columbia Single Transferable Vote. 146 of them voted in favor of it. Only 7 voted no.
Before they launched this remarkable democratic exercise, the government pledged to submit their recommendations (whatever they were) as a referendum to the voters in May 2005. Now, if that referendum passes, the government has further pledged to push through legislation that organizes the province’s electoral system to use the new voting method in the 2009 elections.
Fittingly, the Assembly did its work in public, including on the Web.
Categories: Uncategorized dw
Is this that different than the old “town meeting” once common in New England?
Open for business… and government.
I was reading an article by Tom Atlee on Citizen Deliberative Councils, and thinking that some organizations get it, while others don’t. Clearly CDCs can be an excellent way for people to exercise their democratic power, and for governments to…
No…this was more like a commission. The Assembly was composed of one man and one woman from each riding. It held meetings all over the province, and met in Vancouver on a regular basis to hear from experts, compare notes and work through ideas and options.
It has to be said that the STV result wasn’t widely praised by the public, with most people preferring an MMP (mixed member proportional) system. This would see a mix of local candidates and party list candidates forming a proportionally representative legislature.
Still the whole thing has been a remarkable exercise, and I’ll vote yes for electoral reform in May, with the hopes that th Green Party will finally win seats in 2008.
I agree its a remarkable exercise. STV isn’t as well known as MMP. They are both proportional, but STV is more candidate centered which is why I believe a non-partisan group recommended it specifically. However regional proportional systems are used in Ireland STV, most of scandinavia (although more party centered), and a handful of other advancing democracy’s. BC-STV, is also gaining a lot of support from MMP supporters, who realize they’re both better than what we have now. http://www.stvforbc.com