{"id":17860,"date":"2016-12-16T15:33:43","date_gmt":"2016-12-16T20:33:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=17860"},"modified":"2016-12-16T15:33:43","modified_gmt":"2016-12-16T20:33:43","slug":"the-verdict-on-the-massachusetts-citizens-initiative-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=17860","title":{"rendered":"the verdict on the Massachusetts Citizens Initiative Review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last summer, working with\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/healthydemocracy.org\/\">Healthy Democracy<\/a> and the office of State Rep. Jonathan Hecht, we at the <a href=\"http:\/\/\/activecitizen.tufts.edu\">Tisch College of Civic Life<\/a> organized the first <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cirmass2016.org\/\">Citizens Initiative Review in Massachusetts<\/a>.\u00a0A representative group of citizens deliberated intensively about a pending ballot initiative to legalize marijuana and co-wrote an informative statement about the initiative&#8217;s pros and cons that\u00a0we helped to disseminate to voters. Watching them at work was a\u00a0powerful antidote to the atmosphere of civic despair so prevalent in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Now a research team led by Penn State&#8217;s John Gastil has published an evaluation. These are some key findings (verbatim <a href=\"http:\/\/sites.psu.edu\/citizensinitiativereview\/2016\/12\/16\/595\/\">from this site<\/a>):<\/p>\n<p><strong>The 2016 Massachusetts CIR panel achieved a high quality of deliberation, which enabled panelists to understand and consider key arguments for and against Question 4 (marijuana legalization ballot measure).<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The 2016 Massachusetts CIR maintained either the same or a higher level of deliberation obtained in previous years and in other locations. The review provided participants with high quality information provided by strong teams of advocates and experts and created a respectful and open atmosphere for panelists to engage in deliberation.<\/li>\n<li>The vast majority of participants reported learning enough about the measure, and most reported little difficulty processing information, arguments, and underlying values related to Question 4.<\/li>\n<li>CIR panelists and neutral observers largely agreed in their assessment that the CIR was both analytically rigorous and conducted in a democratic fashion.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The 2016 Massachusetts CIR produced a clear and reliable Citizens\u2019 Statement.<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Claims made in the 2016 Citizens\u2019 Statement generally were accurate and verifiable, though some elements reflected unchallenged expert testimony of indeterminate accuracy.<\/li>\n<li>The 2016 Massachusetts Citizens\u2019 Statement was clearly written in broadly accessible language, but the Statement could have been stronger with better direction in relation to the ordering of claims and the inclusion of values.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Voters rated the 2016 Massachusetts CIR Statement as useful and informative.<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Nearly two-thirds of voters (65%) rated the Statement as \u201ceasy to read.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>The vast majority of voters rated the Statement as either \u201cvery informative\u201d (42%) or \u201csomewhat informative\u201d (52%).<\/li>\n<li>In deciding how to vote on Question 4, a third (32%) said the Statement was \u201cvery helpful,\u201d and another 45% said it was \u201csomewhat helpful.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Voters shown the 2016 Massachusetts CIR Statement on Question 4 increased their issue knowledge and were eager to share its findings<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Massachusetts voters were randomly divided into two groups\u2014one reading just official information about Question 4 and the other reading those same materials, along with the CIR Statement. The CIR exposure group improved its knowledge scores on three of the four factual claims tested by becoming both more accurate in its beliefs and more confident in the correct knowledge those voters held.<\/li>\n<li>Knowledge gains were found across three different voter groups, including those opposed to Question 4, those in favor, and those undecided on the measure.<\/li>\n<li>A majority of voters (57-75%) said they would \u201cprobably\u201d or \u201cdefinitely\u201d share these four pieces of information. This finding held true across all three voter groups (those opposed to, in favor of, or neutral on Question 4), though those in favor or opposed to the measure were somewhat more eager to share the information that aligned with their views.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When asked whether they would continue to believe findings in the CIR Statement even after being refuted by an alternative source, voters were divided. When the hypothetical refutation came from pro and con campaigns, roughly twice as many voters continued to trust the CIR versus those inclined to doubt it. When the refutation came from an \u201cindependent expert,\u201d a plurality were more inclined to trust the expert.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last summer, working with\u00a0Healthy Democracy and the office of State Rep. Jonathan Hecht, we at the Tisch College of Civic Life organized the first Citizens Initiative Review in Massachusetts.\u00a0A representative group of citizens deliberated intensively about a pending ballot initiative to legalize marijuana and co-wrote an informative statement about the initiative&#8217;s pros and cons that\u00a0we [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-deliberation","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17860"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17862,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17860\/revisions\/17862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}