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surveys that model the opinion of a diverse group that is more representative
of the community as a whole. While not
everyone will attend a meeting, we want
something like a ‘demographically and
politically diverse sample’ to attend,
though this need not be a ‘statistically
representative sample’ in the social science sense. In the 20th Century George
Gallup developed the “random sampling” technique that is still used in
many public opinion polls today. Such
techniques require considerable resources in time and money. They are
essential for a formal Deliberative Poll ®
which seeks statistical robustness in its
results. But for many models of deliberative democracy, “convenience sampling”
is acceptable. For the selection of the
Chief of Police, the City enlisted the

networks of the Presidents of each of the
city’s “Public Safety Councils” to reach
out to local organizations and citizen
groups to call for increased attendance at
special meetings of the Zone Councils in
order to provide input on the selection of
the chief of police. The post-event surveys showed that a demographically
diverse audience of over 220 citizens
answered the questions. The diversity of
the participants and the overall number
of participants (much lager than typical
meetings) lent credibility to the results of
the survey. Recruitment and exit surveys
are the bookends of the deliberative process. If done well, they will enhance the
fruitfulness of the informed, wellstructured conversations that stand at the
center of the process.

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