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with this voting system too. See William
Poundstone’s Gaming the Vote for a
good analysis of the entire issue of voting theory.) In a chapter aptly titled,
“Deliberation, But Voting Too,” Gerry
Mackie looks at the voting system of
Papua New Guinea (PNG) to discern the
effect of one voting system verses another on political society (See Cavalier,
Approaching Deliberative Democracy,
pp 96-99). PNG is an island state characterized by multiple competing ethnic
groups. If they followed a plurality voting scheme with many different candidates from different groups running for
office, the outcome would mirror the
ethnic factions of their society. This in
fact happens and as a result half their
members of parliament are elected with
less than 30% of the vote. In 1997 one
member got just 6.3% of the vote. Since
party candidates tend to support their
own faction, the government struggles
with extremists on all sides. Now imagine using an “Alternative Voting” system. “Under the alternative vote, the
voter rank-orders all the candidates, or
the first few anyway. In those circumstances voters would cast their first preference for their local co-ethnic, but the
voting rule elicited cross-group candidates who solicited second and third
preferences from voters in many groups.
The way the alternative vote works, candidates winning more second and third
preferences across several groups tend to
get selected. The discourse of the crossgroup candidates was more oriented to
the general interest. And the discourse,
and the decisions, of a parliament of

such officials is likely to differ systematically from the discourse and decisions
of officials elected by plurality rule” (my
emphasis). At bottom, there is no completely satisfactory voting system. Each
model has its virtues and drawbacks.
Context matters. But so does the need to
turn our attention back to what goes on
before voting takes place. For in the end
we want voters that can exercise what
Public Agenda’s Daniel Yankelovich
calls “public judgment.” We want voters
that are informed and engaged and capable of seeing other interests along with
their own. And we’d like to know what
they think about an issue or policy. One
way to do that is through well-designed
public opinion surveys.
Survey Design
Like voting theory, survey design has
spawned a vast literature. It has also become part of the curriculum in the social
sciences. I will not attempt to address
this area in any detailed or technical
way. Rather, I’ll speak from the perspective of the lessons learned in developing
and using surveys at the Program for
Deliberative Democracy. In designing
our surveys, we begin with the development of background documents that lay
out the context for the issues to be discussed and the choices to be considered.
In doing this, we establish the goals and
objectives of deliberation. The survey
instrument is then designed to measure
these goals and objectives. Measurements in surveys can be of people’s
knowledge and attitudes and can be either quantitative or qualitative. For example, a survey question on climate

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