Citizens Assembly Blog

Ontario’s Public Education Campaign Launches; U.K.’s Prime Minister Explores Creating a Citizens Assembly

The Citizens Assembly Blog has been moved to iSolon.org.  Please check for all future citizens assembly news at www.iSolon.org.  --J.H. Snider

This blog entry covering citizens assembly news since late May is divided into four sections:

1) Country-By-Country News
2) New Research
3) Launch of  iSolon.org and Personal News
4) Newspaper Articles

Country-By-Country News

As expected, the big news on citizens assemblies continues to come out of Ontario.  All eyes are now focused on the referendum scheduled for October 10, when the public will have a chance to vote up or down on the Ontario Citizens Assembly’s policy recommendations. 

On June 20, Ontario’s Government announced the wording of the referendum question that will be placed on the ballot for the October 10 election.  The question reads:

Which electoral system should Ontario use to elect members to the provincial legislature?

Option #1:   The existing electoral system (first past the post).

Option #2:   The alternative electoral system proposed by the Citizens' Assembly (mixed member proportional).

On August 1, Elections Ontario launched a $6.8 million education campaign on the referendum (this comes out of a total $92.9 million budget for the provincial election).  The campaign is called “Understand the Question.”  Most of the campaign’s big expenditures come after Labor Day.  They include a TV ad blitz, a newspaper and community paper ad blitz (in 25 different languages), and 4.8 million pamphlets mailed to households. Online ads and YouTube videos are also part of the campaign.   

Elections Ontario cannot endorse either of the two referendum choices; it must remain strictly neutral.  Its mandate is to alert the public to the existence of the referendum and describe the mechanics of the two types of electoral systems.  Its special campaign website at http://yourbigdecision.ca says it “provides voters with impartial tools to define and understand both the First-Past-the-Post and the Mixed Member Proportional electoral systems and to assess these systems against individual voter priorities and considerations.”

In addition to the government website, there is a Yes MPP (http://www.voteformmp.ca/) and a No MPP (http://nommp.ca/) website/campaign.  All reports indicate that the Yes MPP is better funded and organized, with much greater grassroots support.  A quick look at the two websites will confirm this impression.

Having said the above, it’s not clear to me how much impact any of this is having on the electorate.  There has been lots of newspaper coverage—since late May more than 300 articles of one nature or another according to a Nexis search.  But most of these articles are reruns of the same article in different publications and many are in the back pages of the newspaper. An Environs poll of 585 Ontarians in early June found that only 28% were familiar with the citizens assembly’s proposal.

On the other hand, the wide circulation Toronto Star has run more than a dozen articles since the middle of May.  Indicative of the relatively high salience of the referendum, The Economist, a high prestige national publication, on September 1 ran an article on referendum.  The Economist’s coverage probably has no local political relevance, but I wanted to note it because I am not aware of any other national U.S. publication that has run an article either about the Ontario citizens assembly or the two other citizens assemblies that preceded it. 

An important feature of the debate over the referendum is that the major political parties are not taking a position on it.  This significantly lowers its visibility during the provincial election campaign.  Only leaders of the small parties, the Greens and New Democrats, have staked out a public position (both in support of the Citizens’ Assembly’s recommendation).

In late June, a flurry of news reports came out of the U.K. that the new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, was seriously considering launching a citizens’ assembly to develop a written British Constitution.  In his July 3 speech to parliament on parliamentary and constitional reform, however, the Prime Minister made no mention of creating a citizens assembly.  However, he did say that he had asked his Justice Minister to hold a series of public meetings throughout the fall to discuss constitutional reform.  Thus, there is another opportunity to propose a citizens assembly as a democratic reform mechanism.  Also of note in his speech, he specifically endorsed citizen juries, a related institution based on a randomly selected deliberative body (this should make Ned Crosby—the man who devoted his life to promoting citizen juries—feel that his work might yet pay off.)  The relevant section of his speech is pasted below. I’ve highlighted in bold the points specifically cited above.

While our system of representative democracy - local as well as national - is at the heart of our constitution, it can be enhanced by devolving more power directly to the people and I propose we start the debate and consult on empowering citizens and communities in four areas.

First, powers of initiative, extending the right of the British people to intervene with their elected local representatives to ensure action - through a new community right to call for action and new duties on public bodies to involve local people.

Second, new rights for the British people to be consulted through mechanisms such as 'citizens juries' on major decisions affecting their lives.

Third, powers of redress, new rights for the British people to scrutinise and improve the delivery of local services.

And fourth, powers to ballot on spending decisions in areas such as neighbourhood budgets and youth budgets, with decisions on finance made by local people themselves.

At the same time, we must give new life to the very idea of citizenship itself.
All of us in this House would acknowledge there are very specific challenges we must meet on engaging young people and improving citizenship education - and I hope there will be all-party support for a Commission to review this and make recommendations….

In Britain we have a largely unwritten constitution. To change that would represent a fundamental and historic shift in our constitutional arrangements. So it is right to involve the public in a sustained debate whether there is a case for the United Kingdom developing a full British Bill of Rights and Duties, or for moving towards a written constitution.

And because such fundamental changes should happen only where there is a settled consensus on whether to proceed, I have asked my Right Honourable Friend the Secretary for Justice to lead a dialogue within Parliament and with people across the United Kingdom by holding a series of hearings, starting in the autumn, in all regions and nations of this country - and he will consult with the other parties on this process.

Mr Speaker, the changes we propose today and the national debate we now begin are founded upon the conviction that the best answer to disengagement from our democracy is to strengthen our democracy.

It is my hope that this dialogue of all parties and the British people will lead to a new consensus, a more effective democracy and a stronger sense of shared national purpose.

Scotland, one of Europe’s leaders in implementing e-democracy, may also be a good prospect for a citizens assembly.  On August 14, 2007, the Scottish Government released a white paper on the future of governance in Scotland, which included a call for a “National Conversation.”  Unlock Democracy, a democratic reform advocacy group, has used that call to call on the government to create a “Citizens’ Convention” modeled after the citizens assemblies in British Columbia and Ontario.

In many other countries, leading Green Party candidates have called for the creation of a citizens assembly to implement electoral reform.  Green parties presumably endorse citizens assemblies because they believe they are a way to get proportional representation, a type of electoral system that favors small parties.  Since the last issue of the Citizens Assembly News Digest, these Green Party calls have come from Manitoba (Canada), Nova Scotia (Canada), and New Zealand.  These calls raise the visibility of the citizens assembly reform idea.  But because the Green Party is not a major party in any of these jurisdictions, they probably have little more political salience than a newspaper op-ed calling for a particular democratic reform.

In the Netherlands, despite the high repute with which the citizens assembly has been credited with conducting its business, the Parliament appears unlikely to pass its recommended reforms.  This is ironic because the recommendations of the Netherlands Citizens Assembly were far more modest than the recommendations of the British Columbia and Ontario Citizens Assemblies.  The key difference may be that in the Netherlands the Citizens Assembly’s recommendations were purely advisory, whereas in British Columbia and Ontario they were put on the ballot as a referendum.  In an e-mail to me on September 5, 2007, Professor Henk van der Kolk, a political scientist from the University of Twente, describes for this Citizens Assembly New Digest the dismal odds of Parliament passing the Citizens Assembly’s recommendations.

State of affairs, Dutch Burgerforum

The new government (formed after the November 2006 elections) is still discussing its position towards the proposals of the Citizens Assembly. The new minister of the Interior and Kingdom relations (PvdA) has shifted responsibility of this file to the junior minister (or ‘state secretary’) (CDA). Since the PvdA is officially in favor of the change (see below) this probably indicates the minister does not see a chance within the coalition to change the electoral law and/or is not willing to fight for it.

The CDA junior minister has three options: to accept the proposal, to indicate ‘she will not take actions to implement the change’, or to reject the proposal. The third option means she has to explain her decision in parliament and the opposition (especially D66 and GreenLeft) will use this decision to criticize the undemocratic attitude of the government. The first option means she has to implement a proposal which she and her party probably do not like very much. So the most likely option is the second; leaving the decision to parliament. In that case, D66 [the small party that pushed for creating the citizens assembly and endorsed its recommendations] will take a parliamentary initiative, which will subsequently be rejected by a majority in parliament (maybe supported by PvdA and GreenLeft). 

Professor Henk’s conclusion was based on the following data that he compiled.

Party	Party family	Votes 2006	Seats	Current coalition	Position of the party
Christen Democratisch Appèl (CDA)	Christain democracts	2.608.573	41	X	No known (official) position, probably not very positive towards institutional change
Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA)	Social democrats	2.085.077	33	X	The proposal to introduce a ‘party vote’ in addition to the personal vote, was already an element of the party platform of the PvdA before the CA proposed this idea. However, enthusiasm for this promise within the party seems to be lacking.
Socialistische Partij (SP)	Socialists	1.630.803	25		No known (official) position, probably not very positive towards institutional change, not very positive towards the idea of a CA http://www.sp.nl/nieuws/ spanning/200605/ binnenstebuiten.shtml
Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie (VVD)	Conservative liberals	1.443.312	22		No known (official) position, probably not very positive towards institutional change
Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV)	Right wing	579.490	9		In favor of a fully open list system (see www.pvv.nl), unknown position towards the CA
GroenLinks (GL)	GreenLeft	453.054	7		Unknown, may be positive however.
ChristenUnie (CU)	Orthodox Christian	390.969	6	X	Not known for its positive attitude towards institutional change, probably not in favour
Democraten 66 (D66)	Progressive liberals	193.232	3		D66 was strongly in favor of introducing the CA and will support the proposal; http://www.d66.nl/9359000/ 1/j9vvhc6cwgbojx9/ vhfopcgltuq0?ctx=vhdrkxw42lyy
Partij voor de Dieren (PvdD)	Animal party	179.988	2		Unknown, at least in favor (like most other parties) of PR
Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij (SGP)	Orthodox Christians	153.266	2		Most likely against this institutional reform
		9.654.475 (turnout 80%)	150

New Research

There has been a burst of scholarly work on citizens assemblies, and I intend to list that scholarship and on occasion review it in future issues of the Citizens Assembly News Digest.  Please send me any work you have done in this area so that others can benefit from it.

My own book review essay on democratic theorists who have proposed legislative bodies made up of randomly selected citizens, From Dahl to O'Leary: 36 Years of the 'Yale School of Democratic Reform', was published in the current issue of the Journal of Public Deliberation, which is also looking for other work on citizens assemblies.  The book review essay was stimulated by Kevin O’Leary’s new book, Saving Democracy: A Plan for Real Representation in America (Stanford University Press, 2006), which calls for government sponsored randomly selected citizen bodies in every congressional district in the United States. 

The 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, held in Chicago over Labor Day weekend, had two panels that substantially focused on citizens assemblies.  One panel consisted of electoral system experts; the other democratic deliberation experts.   The panel on electoral systems had an excellent turnout, with 27 folks in the audience and a vigorous question and answer session.  Those who regularly attend APSA panels will know how rare it is to have an audience of such size and quality.  Both panels were dominated by Canadian scholars. 

The 2007 Annual Meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association had one paper presented by three authors intimately familiar with the Ontario Citizens Assembly. 

These papers and other are listed in the Academic Conferences and Academic Publications sections of my new website and non-profit organization, iSolon.org.

In general, there has been a recent shift in the literature on citizens assemblies from time series studies of a paricular citizens assembly (British Columbia) to comparative studies of the three citizens assemblies to date (British Columbia, the Netherlands, and Ontario).  Of course, this type of analysis wasn’t possible even a year ago because British Columbia was the only case study available. 

This expansion in the scope of study is a welcome development, but I believe it doesn’t go far enough.  I suggest that we divide the citizens assembly process into three macro stages; the pre-citizens assembly stage (e.g., where the members of the citizens assembly are selected), the citizens assembly stage (where the members of the citizens assembly deliberate and come to judgment), and the post-citizens assembly stage (e.g, where the public is educated about the pros and cons of the citizens assembly’s recommendations).  The studies to date have all focused on the citizens assembly stage.  I believe we need to see more work on the pre- and post-stages.  This may require that political scientists with other types of expertise (such as in public opinion, political communication, and political behavior) take an interest in citizens assemblies.

On the pre-citizens assembly stage, I’d like to know more about why less than 10% of randomly selected citizens agree to participate in a citizens assembly.  Who exactly are the folks that participate and don’t participate?  For example, if a citizens assembly is based in Vancouver, is someone 1,000 miles away near the Artic Circle less likely to participate than someone who lives in Vancouver?  To what extent is money and age a factor in participation?  What do people learn at the informational sessions that lead a large fraction to decide not to participate?  It seems to me that if we don’t know why people do and don’t participate, we cannot take effective steps to bolster the participation rate, which is vital for the democratic legitimacy of this type of institution.  The stratified random sampling partially compensates for the low participation rate, but it is not enough.   Unfortunately, it is too late to gather data to answer many of these questions.  The data have to be gathered upfront as part of the citizens assembly’s institutional design. 

On the post-citizens assembly stage, I’d like to know more about what types of communications are most influential and why citizens vote for or against the referendum.  One thing we have learned from the three citizens assemblies is that party elites are unlikely to take a public stand on a citizens assembly’s recommendations.  This is a big problem because the press tends to heavily rely on elite disagreement in choosing what to cover and how to cover it. 

Nevertheless, in Ontario there has been substantial press coverage of the citizens assembly.  However, the press focuses its coverage on the strenghts and weaknesses of the citizens assembly’s final recommendations.  But it might be that voters primarily make their decision based on their trust of the citizens assembly process.  The press seems to expect that the voters will replicate the decision making process of the citizens assembly members.  But that may be asking an uncreasonable amount of voters.  It would be great if on October 10 we could get a well designed exit poll that would seek to answer some of these questions.  What percentage of voters know of the ballot item by election day?  Are voters that have the most knowledge most likely to support or oppose the citizens assembly’s recommendations?  Do voters vote for or against the referendum item based on their knowledge of electoral systems or their trust in the citizens assembly process?

In February 2008 Cambridge University Press is publishing Designing Deliberative Democracy: The British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly, a collection of scholarly articles on the British Columbia Citizens Assembly.  I’ll have more to say about this book as its publication deadline approaches.  A look at its table of contents demonstrates that it’s going to be a book of great substance.

Launch of iSolon.org and Personal News

After close to seven years at the New America Foundation, where I held the titles of Senior Research Fellow and Research Director, I finally left in August (although I am still officially listed as New America staff on its website).  I submitted my resignation last March but agreed to stay on while a replacement was sought.  My last report for New America, “The Art of Spectrum Lobbying: America's $480 Billion Spectrum Giveaway, How it Happened, and How to Prevent it from Recurring,” was released at an event in mid-July and as a glossy report in mid-August.   

In February of this year. I incorporated a non-profit, iSolon.org, and this week I launched the iSolon.org website.  Please check it out at www.iSolon.org.  That website includes a clearinghouse of information on citizens assemblies, which I hope will be of use to members of this community.  In addition to launching iSolon.org, I am writing an e-democracy book for a major public affairs press and will have the title of Affliated Researcher at Columbia University’s Institute for Tele-Information.

On July 3, 2007 my daughter was sworn into office as a school board member for the Anne Arundel County public schools, a school district with close to a $1 billion budget and 10,000 employees.  Although she is the student member of the Board, she has full voting powers like the adult members.  The occasion of her taking office led the Baltimore Sun to run a profile of the Snider family on the front page of its Maryland Section, which has a claimed circulation of more than a million people.  By late October my daughter hopes to launch a state-of-the-art e-democracy website for the students, including a discussion forum, e-petitions tool, and digg.com-style review of articles about the school system.  A beta version of the website can be found at www.aacstudents.org .

Newspapers Articles

Below is a smattering of news articles that had valid links within a few weeks of when this Citizens Assembly News Digest was published.  For a much more thorough listing of articles, consult a database such as Nexis or Factiva.

Sept. 4, 2007

Let's get proportional for Newsdurhamregion.com - Durham,Canada By Geoff Daw The Ontario Citizens Assembly was a randomly chosen group of 103 Ontarians from across

Reform's on the ballot: Now if only they cared Toronto Star - Ontario, Canada While the 104-member Ontario Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform held months of public hearings

Sept. 1, 2007

Let's look at ward system The North Bay Nugget - North Bay,Ontario,Canada

Silence of the lambs Hamilton Mountain News - Ontario, Canada

Questions surround MMP Toronto Star - Ontario, Canada

Aug 28, 2007

Vote for MMP Online drive launched: Ontarians invited to give ... Canada NewsWire (press release) – Canada

Aug. 27, 2007

Proposed reforms are far from perfect Waterloo Record - Waterloo,Ontario,Canada

Aug 22, 2007

Local election campaign kirks off SooToday.com - USA

MMP would be more representation, not less Cambridge Times - Cambridge,Ontario,Canada

A duty to be informed Guelph Tribune - Guelph,ON,Canada

Aug 21, 2007

MMP system can work here: reader Orillia Packet & Times - Orillia,Ontario,Canada

Aug 20, 2007

Electoral reform map clarifies the issue but not the outcome Vancouver Sun - British Columbia, Canada

Aug 17, 2007

Defence of old vote system weak: reader Orillia Packet & Times - Orillia,Ontario,Canada

Aug 16, 2007

Panel recommends boosting number of BC MLAs by two Globe and Mail – Canada

Get informed on Referendum 2007' Fort Frances Times - ON, Canada

Aug 10, 2007

Ontarians to participate in referendum vote this fall Orangeville Citizen - Orangeville,Canada

Aug 9, 2007

Grey County cool to electoral reform—Anita Droog Bayshore Broadcasting News Centre - Owen Sound,Ontario,Canada

Cast a smart vote on election reform Toronto Star - Ontario, Canada

Get informed on reform Toronto Star - Ontario, Canada

Could make world of difference when you vote Cambridge Times - Cambridge,Ontario,Canada

Aug 3, 2007

MMP would provide better representation: local supporter Orillia Packet & Times - Orillia,Ontario,Canada

Aug 2, 2007

Elections Ontario Launches Referendum Public Education Campaign ... Canada NewsWire (press release) - Canada

Deciding democracy Globe and Mail – Canada

Aug 1, 2007

Voters: verify the claims of electoral reform critics before Oct. 10 Orillia Packet & Times - Orillia,Ontario,Canada

July 29, 2007

Think long and hard before deciding on electoral referendum Orillia Packet & Times - Orillia,Ontario,Canada

July 12, 2007

Are you informed on electoral reform? Huntsville Forester - Ontario, Canada

July 9, 2007

Why Traditions Matter or Why MMP is Wrong for Ontario pt. 8 By aginsberg(aginsberg)

July 4, 2007

Un-democracy; Proposed electoral system will undermine the voting ... Sudbury Star - Sudbury,Ontario,Canada

July 2, 2007

Campaigns for referendum on electoral reform gear up Toronto Star - Ontario, Canada

June 30, 2007

No 'radical' change: prof The Kingston Whig-Standard - Kingston,Ontario,Canada

June 29, 2007

Changing how we vote; Why a group of citizens is pressing for ... The Kingston Whig-Standard - Kingston,Ontario,Canada

June 26, 2007

Electoral reform critic doesn't grasp benefits Peterborough Examiner - Peterborough,Ontario,Canada

June 25, 2007

Ontario government releases referendum question on electoral reform Fort Frances Times - ON, Canada

June 23, 2007

Vote for change Rabble.ca - Montreal,QC,Canada

Ontario government releases referendum question on electoral reform Canada East - Canada

Yes Campaign pushing for political change; Group pushing citizens ... Owen Sound Sun Times - Owen Sound,Ontario,Canada

June 21, 2007

Yes Campaign pushing for political change Owen Sound Sun Times - Owen Sound,Ontario,Canada

Ontario referendum question formulated Globe and Mail - Canada

McGuinty Government Announces Referendum Question Canada NewsWire (press release) - Canada

June 19, 2007

A more positive way of voting Northumberland Today - Cobourg,Ontario,Canada

June 18, 2007

Electoral system overhaul proposed Hamilton Spectator - Ontario, Canada

June 16, 2007

Proposed new voting system explained Mon. Northumberland Today - Cobourg,Ontario,Canada

PCs delay on vote changes London Free Press - Canada

No evidence that adding MPPs gives better government Peterborough Examiner - Peterborough,Ontario,Canada

Learn of possible voting changes Monday Northumberland Today - Cobourg,Ontario,Canada

June 14, 2007

Cost of adding MPPs is astronomical Hamilton Spectator - Ontario, Canada

June 9, 2007

New voting system works well

June 6, 2007

Meeting on proposed new voting system Northumberland Today - Cobourg,Ontario,Canada

Residents look at proposed election changes parrysound.com - Parry Sound,Ontario,Canada

Bolton woman seeks local Green nomination Caledon Citizen - Caledon,Ontario,Canada

Monday, June 4, 2007, at the North Carolina General Assembly Myrtle Beach Sun News - Myrtle Beach,SC,USA

SES students receive awards at assembly News-Democrat & Leader - Russellville,KY,USA

Bolton woman seeks local Green nomination Caledon Citizen - Caledon,Ontario,Canada

June 3, 2007

Electoral reform: how much is really needed? Orangeville Citizen - Orangeville,Canada

Planning Council to debate Ontario's proposed voting system Sudbury Star - Sudbury,Ontario,Canada

Bar set high to change outdated system of electing MPPs Peterborough Examiner - Peterborough,Ontario,Canada

June 2, 2007

Democratic advance Peterborough Examiner - Peterborough,Ontario,Canada

Voting reform focus of meeting Sudbury Star - Sudbury,Ontario,Canada Susan Pigott from the Citizens' Assembly Secretariat and Citizen's Assembly members Richard Bowdidge

June 1, 2007

Ontarians to vote on electoral change The Charlatan - Ottawa,Canada

May 30, 2007

Questions, criticism at electoral reform night Peterborough Examiner - Peterborough,Ontario,Canada

May 29, 2007

Another Ill-Informed Toronto Columnist Agoravox - Paris,France

May 28, 2007

Midland Says Yes! By Chris Tindal

May 26, 2007

Referendum will determine whether changes to Ontario's electoral ... Huntsville Forester - Huntsville,Ontario,Canada

May 25, 2007

One ballot, two votes: a new way to vote in Ontario Northumberland Today - Cobourg,Ontario,Canada

May 24, 2007

Electoral reform issue is 'under-reported' King Township Sentinel - Beeton,ON,Canada

May 22, 2007

Why electoral reform won't work Toronto Star - Toronto,Ontario,Canada

If Gordon Brown doesn't listen he'll entrench public mistrust Guardian Unlimited - UK

May 20, 2007

Citizens' panel recommends overhaul of electoral system Hamilton Spectator - Hamilton,Ontario,Canada

Passing judgment on election system Waterloo Record - Waterloo,Ontario,Canada

Hampton lauds final report on electoral reform Fort Frances Times - Fort Frances,Ontario,Canada

Voters will decide on electoral reform Orillia Packet & Times - Orillia,Ontario,Canada

Panel of citizens recommends Ontario overhaul electoral system The Chronicle Journal - Thunder Bay,Ontario,Canada

Update on the Netherlands Citizens' Assembly

Please note that, unless explicitly stated otherwise, all first person accounts are simply that; they do not represent any type of official position. The tollowing first person accounts written specifically for this blog are from 1) Henk van der Kolk, and 2) David Hulshuis.

1) Observations of Henk van der Kolk, a Political Science Professor at the University of Twente, The Netherlands

The advice
On December 14, 2006, the Dutch CA officially presents its proposal for an amended version of the current electoral system. The CA decided on this proposal the weekend of November 10-11. The CA’s proposal is to introduce the option of a 'list vote' and to abolish the individual threshold currently used in The Netherlands. In addition, the members proposed to change D'Hondt for Hare, which will slightly benefit the smallest parties. The members clearly signaled a dislike of 'districts' : the CA proposed to keep the current single district. Even the 'German' mixed-system was in the end not strongly supported. STV or SMD systems were seen as very remote from current (party) politics, without offering a solution to the current political problems. The advice, prepared by the office supporting the CA and amended by the members, is short (about 10 pages in print) and is (even by some critics) conceived to be coherent and to the point.

The final stages of the decision making process
Final decisions were made in the weekend of November 10. The meeting started early to discuss the two remaining alternatives; (1) a slightly amended version of the current system (reintroducing Hare and lowering the individual threshold to 12,5%) and (2) an alternative introducing the party vote and abolishing the individual threshold. These two alternatives were supported by relatively large groups. Other alternatives (two rather complicated ‘new’ systems, a system where voters were ‘in a way’ able to panache and a mixed system) were voted down in the weekend in October.

The final votes were on Friday afternoon in order to make the evening news. Several television stations indeed paid some attention to the decisions taken with animations of the system (prepared by the office of the CA and with short interviews, mainly with the chairperson Jacobine Geel). In a semi final vote, the two remaining alternatives were put to vote. In that vote, alternative 2 appeared to be supported strongly compared to alternative 1. In a final vote, alternative 1 appeared to be preferred to the current system. The members decided to put some specific guidelines about the operation of the system in the final report, which is therefore quite specific.

The most contested part on Friday and Saturday was a discussion about ‘additional recommendations’. Some members wanted to include advice about a directly elected prime minister, referenda etc.. Others thought this would harm the proposal and claimed these issues were not discussed enough. One additional recommendation (adopted on Friday evening) was the ban on ‘leaving the party’ (crossing the floor). After this vote, some members realized this would lead to an even stronger position of parties and factions, while abolishing the individual threshold. Friday night and Saturday morning some members strongly lobbied to get this element out of the report. This create some tension in the group and the chair asked all members whether they wanted to vote again. A majority asked for a revote and after this the additional recommendation was indeed dropped from the document. After this sequence of events one of the members left the assembly (although some claimed he was already planning to leave the assembly early). Most other additional recommendations were then not adopted by the members. Even some very mild suggestions for additional research are not in the final report.

The CA as an experiment
This was the first CA in The Netherlands and it has always also been seen as an experiment. As an experiment, it was a success. It was shown that a randomly selected group (although the ‘random nature’ can be discussed, since only about 1,500 out of 50,000 were able and willing to participate) of citizens, supported by a staff of civil servants and a chairperson, can agree on an acceptable document containing a reasonable opinion about a very complex issue. During the process, all aspects of decision making were intensively discussed and evaluated and the bureau is planning to make an extensive written evaluation. Since the analysis of a series of surveys among members is not finished yet, an overall evaluation of the process is still tentative.

The expertise of the members
Whether this group was in the end better able to think about and discuss electoral systems than, for example, my students in the university, is not entirely clear. Many (I even think most) members were in the end not really ‘experts’. The fact that even the final votes were strongly influenced by some discussions on the final days, suggests that many members still did not have strong opinions (or knowledge).

However, some members were experts, knowing perfectly what they were doing. The course of events, however, forced the ‘experts’ to narrow down the range of alternatives quite soon. Since districts and individualized systems (like STV) were disliked more or less from the start, while proportionality (and political parties) was almost sacrosanct, no-one was really interested in the details of these non-PR systems and expertise on these systems did not really develop. Even expertise about panache and cumulating votes (aspects of PR systems) was virtually absent, since most members did not like this idea. Many experts therefore headed for a viable, not too different, and simple system. Thus, expertise was limited and largely developed on the basis of the viable alternatives as seen at the beginning of the summer (after the consultation phase).

There is therefore at least a grain of truth in the often heard assessment that CAs are no experts and that this kind of deliberative democracy has its limits. But again, this was a complex issue.

Comparison with the CA in BC
The Dutch CA was an echo of the CA in British Columbia, but was in several respects very different. First of all, it was less intense. The number of meetings was smaller and the length of all meetings was shorter. Secondly, there will be no referendum. Thirdly, probably because the issue of the electoral system was not as much on the agenda as it was in BC, it was hardly discussed in the media. Newspapers, “experts,” and others were hardly giving clues, ideas, or comments. The CA more or less operated on its own. It will therefore be interesting to see how the opinions of its members developed compared to those in BC.

Future
The advice is given to the government on Tuesday, and since the advice is so close to the current system, will hardly harm parties and already was the choice of one of the most likely coalition partners (social democrats of the PvdA) there is more than a small chance it will be adopted.

--Henk van der Kolk, Professor, University of Twente, The Netherlands

2) Observations of David Hulshuis, Member, Netherlands Citizens Assembly

The Dutch citizen's assembly has reached consensus and has presented its proposal for a new electoral system! The assembly has come up with an electoral system that retains the strengths and simplicity of the current system - such as high proportionality, a low electoral threshold, one district, one vote and open lists - while at the same time giving the voter the choice of voting on a party or a person and giving more influence on who will gain a seat in parliament.

On November 10 and 11, the assembly held its final weekend in The Hague. Friday the 10th was an important day for the assembly as it voted for it's final proposal. After some final discussions and clarifications the two proposals that were still "in the race" after the previous weekend were put to the vote: one being the final proposal, the other being a system very similar to the current system with a lower preferential threshold. The final proposal was voted for by an overwhelming majority of 82% of the total votes. Subsequently, the proposal was compared to the current system and voted for with a large majority of 89%. In other words, there clearly seems to be consensus among the members as to what would be the best electoral system for the Netherlands!

During the voting, camera crews and journalists were present to report on the event. The same night, the assembly and its proposal were main topics on various major national news bulletins and current affair programs. That evening, the assembly voted on additional advice to be included in its report. Although many proposals for additional advice had been done, only a few made it in the final report, all focusing on the responsibility and credibility of MPs and the involvement and participation of citizens. One advice was to organize citizens' assemblies more often as it is a great way to involve citizens and to let the people speak. The next day was spent discussing concept texts for the report and proposing alterations. The weekend, and thus the assembly, was concluded with a dinner and a party afterwards. Clearly, most members were sorry that the assembly was over. It seems to have been a very inspirational and enriching experience to all, with the added joy of meeting many new people.

So what does the proposed system look like? It is a proportional system where the voter can choose to vote either on a party of his choice – supporting the party list, or to give a preferential vote to a specific candidate. This means, that when a party wins 30 seats - based both on party and people votes - and 30% of the votes were votes on the party, 10 seats will be assigned according to the party list order. The other 20 seats will be assigned to those 20 candidates with most preferential votes. Instead of the current system for distribution of residual seats according to largest averages, the method of largest surpluses will be used, in order not to give preferential treatment to the largest parties.

The system remains simple and very proportional like the current system, but it also assures that all MPs have a mandate: they either win their seat based directly on preferential votes (without a preferential threshold), or they gain a seat based on party votes, which is an indirect mandate as voters have implicitly agreed with the list order. This is different from our current system where most MPs have no real mandate and seats are nearly always assigned according to the party list. Voters thus have more influence on who will be on a seat. Also, there will no longer be confusion on what votes are votes on the party leader and what are party votes. For politicians, the system means that it will become even more important to gain credibility and to communicate with the voter. It also opens up new possibilities for candidates to campaign for specific regions or professional groups for example. Although content should be the foremost concern, this system also acknowledges the growing importance of individual candidates.

Although at first it seemed the assembly would come up with more drastic changes, perhaps a mixed member system of some sorts, along the way it became clear that most members were rather content with the current system, particularly its proportionality and simplicity. By radically changing a system, you will never know for sure what effects it will have on elections and the political culture and climate. At the same time, many of the perceived problems in politics are attributed not so much to the systems, but rather to the activities of MPs and parties. These problems cannot simply be changed by altering the electoral system. The proposed electoral system may therefore not seem very radical, but it does include some serious changes when it comes to the mandate of MPs.

In the days after the final assembly weekend, many newspapers, both national and regional, have reported on the citizens' assembly advice. However, the report has not officially been presented to the government yet. As national elections were held on November 22, the report came out during the campaigning period. The official presentation of the report to Minister of Government Reform Atzo Nicolaï will therefore take place in The Hague on December 14. It is now up to politicians to take the next steps, but what will happen with the advice is yet unclear as coalition formations are currently taking place and will probably take long due to surprising and difficult election results. The (centre) right-wing Christian Democrats are once again the largest party, but the Socialist Party have nearly tripled in parliament and there has been a shift towards the political left with a social / centre-left majority for many issues. It remains unclear what coalition will form and what it will do with the advice. The assembly's initiator, Democrats 66 (D66), has nearly been wiped out, with only two seats left in parliament. Although it might take some time before anything is done at all with the advice, a group of assembly members will follow the process and make sure the advice does not end somewhere gathering dust.

Overall, I think the assembly has been a success. Even if nothing will be done with the advice, this project has still shown the possibilities of citizen participation. I had never expected that such a diverse group of people would come up with such a widely supported, well-founded advisory report. Even though the topic of the assembly was rather complex and very abstract at times, most participants have put in a lot of effort to understand the matter at hand and critically discuss the issues at length. Although I am sure that some people will have had difficulties understanding - even in the final phase, the majority of the members have learned a lot and have invested much time and energy in the assembly. What struck me most in the whole process is how emotionally involved many people get in the assembly. This probably emphasizes how important the assembly was to many of its members. It was very clear from the beginning that the assembly's success was dependent on its members, but also for a large part on the chairwoman and the secretariat, in order to keep on schedule and to keep the assembly together. They have done a wonderful job! I surely hope there will be more projects like these in the Netherlands, and should I ever have the chance to be part of a citizens' assembly again, I definitely won't need to think twice!

thoughtful critique of the Netherlands citizens assembly electoral reform recommendations

Professor Matthew Søberg Shugart has written a thoughtful critique of the Netherlands citizens assembly electoral reform recommendations. For his blog, with accompanying comments, click here.

Update on the Netherlands Citizens' Assembly

The following report is from David Hulshuis, a member of the Netherlands Citizens’ Assembly.

Here is another update from the Dutch citizens' assembly. The assembly has moved fast in the last two months and, with only one assembly weekend left, an advice is within reach! It seems that the assembly is being mentioned more often in nationwide media, perhaps partly as a result of other initiatives on democratic reform. Meanwhile, Dutch politicians are busy campaigning and preparing for the national elections on November 22. It sure is an interesting moment to present our final advice, which is planned for November 10.

The assembly has had two more weekend meetings in the last month (on September 29/30 and October (20/21). During the first weekend of September some 30 or so proposals for reform were presented by members of the assembly. The core functions, conditions, and requirements of an electoral system were also established. The last two weekends focused more on working out the different proposals and narrowing down their number.

During the weekend of 29 and 30 September the assembly worked in smaller groups in which members discussed the five main variants of the proposals. Three groups paid attention to other themes, which may be applied to one of the variants: possible influence on coalition formation, an anti-vote, and topical voting. Although there still were significant differences in opinions, there were in-depth discussions resulting in more specific, sometimes reshaped, proposals. By the end of the weekend an indicative poll was held to see which proposals and themes garnered the most support.

In between the weekends, a structured online chat discussion was held among the members in order to elaborate on the arguments for and against the different proposals.

On October 20 the assembly traveled once more to the World Forum Convention Centre in The Hague for another exciting weekend. Some concept texts for the final report were discussed and some political science experts reflected on the assembly proposals, raising some questions and generally giving some useful feedback. The next morning we discussed topics related to the electoral system, including the role and value of abstentions, the electoral threshold, size of parliament, session length, and distribution of residuals seats. After another discussion on the system reform proposals, the assembly went to the vote in the afternoon, reducing the number of proposals to two. The rest of the afternoon was spent on making an inventory of additional recommendations the assembly wants to include in its report. This resulted in a whole shopping list of additional recommendations that definitely will have to be narrowed down during the final weekend as well.

The last two or three weekends were exciting as we now had to turn our general ideas into concrete plans and finally make choices. There seems to be a general consensus that the remaining variants held something for everyone and most members seem to be content with the direction we are going. However, seeing little support for your own proposal or finding out that ideas you advocate will not be included in the final advice, was of course disappointing for some members. This final phase does seem a bit rushed compared to the time we spent on learning about electoral systems and consulting with the Dutch people. To some it indeed seems to go too fast, but I think the majority of the assembly is glad that we are eventually moving towards our advice.

The assembly has gotten more attention in the media lately, at least that is the impression that I get. Often, the assembly is mentioned in connection with other democratization topics. For instance, there has been a "National Convention," a group of 14 independent members, backed by 30 advisors, that looked at the state of politics in the Netherlands and at ways to close the supposed gap between citizens and politicians. The presentation of their report on October 5, in which they recommended a stronger role for parliament and a sharper divide between the cabinet and parliament, yielded quite some press coverage. Hopefully, the citizens' assembly will face similar attention once the advice is ready!

Particularly interesting is the fact that the National Convention advised the government to install citizens' assemblies on important topics more often, as they provide a great opportunity to bridge the gap between citizens and politicians. Also, the Convention said, assemblies give citizens the much wanted opportunity to participate and to give a fresh view of the matter that politicians need. However, they also warn that it should be clear beforehand what role the results of an assembly will play in formal decision-making, as otherwise trust will be let down if results are pushes aside (A risk, I think, of the current assembly too). The Public Prosecution Service seems to lead the way, as it is planning to install an assembly on sentencing in the Netherlands, in order to hear citizens' opinions on penalties, as it is a much heard assertion in media and jurisdiction that penalties do not always fit crimes well.

The final assembly weekend will be held on November 10 and 11. On Friday, the assembly will vote for the final proposal and the additional recommendations. The citizens' assembly will publicly announce their proposal for the first time on prime time national television on the same day. The next day we will spend time on revising and adapting the contents of the advisory report. The weekend will be concluded with a party. In the following days there will be more TV coverage and hopefully a lot of press coverage as well. The actual report will be finished afterwards and presented to Minister of Government Reform Atzo Nicolaï in early December, when coalition formation will be taking place.

Best regards,

David Hulshuis

Two eyewitness accounts of citizens assembly developments in the Netherlands

Both of the accounts below are from eyewitnesses of the Netherlands citizens assembly.

Eyewitness Account #1: From David Hulshuis, a member of the citizens assembly.

September 6, 2006

Dear Jim,

I hardly know where to start as a lot has happened since my last e-mail. There have been three more assembly weekends, over a dozen regional meetings throughout the country, and, meanwhile, the Dutch government has collapsed! I will try to give a succinct, chronological account of what happened in the last few months.

In my last update I reported on the regional meetings that were being held in order to hear the opinions of fellow citizens. In total, 12 meetings organized by the assembly's secretariat were held all over the country, as well as several meetings that were organized by members of the assembly themselves! One of the meetings was especially aimed at "new voters": both young people about to turn 18 and immigrants. The meetings on average drew between 50 and 100 people each and generated very vivid discussions.

It was very striking that many Dutchmen seem to have very little faith in politicians. While most attendants agreed the electoral system has to be changed in order to bring politics and citizens closer to each other, it was also clear that many people feel it is not the system itself that causes problems, but the politicians themselves.

Visitors raised many other issues not directly related to the electoral system such as referendums, e-voting, populism, and so on. To me it became clear that the opinions heard on the meetings differed little from the opinions in the assembly; we indeed seem rather representative of Dutch society!

Discussions generated rather similar opinions in different parts of the country, except on the topic of regional representation. While hardly anyone in the western part of the country (which is most densely populated and also where government is seated) felt the need of districts, much more people in other areas, notably the northeast and the southwest, believed in the necessity of district representation.

The regional meetings also spawned regional media attention, not least because assembly members approached local and regional newspapers and radio stations. Still, national media do not report much on the assembly yet. Maybe that will change soon as we are getting closer to writing our advice.

Two more assembly weekends were held in June before summer recess. In these two weekends the assembly discussed which elements of the electoral system members feel need be changed and which elements need to remain the same. Discussion topics included possible influence on coalition formation, regional representation, irritation about mp's leaving their party who can keep their seat, the height of the electoral threshold, etc. In the first weekend the British electoral system expert David Farrel paid us a visit. He seemed to be very interested and enthusiastic about the assembly
initiative. Many people were amazed to hear Farrel is very charmed by the Dutch system. Maybe it is not that bad after all?

During the second weekend 3 Dutch MP's and one MP from Luxemburg visited and answered many questions, which gave the members a better insight into the activities of
MP's. It was a bit of a disappointment for some members to find out that the MP's were rather reserved when asked what they are going to do with the assembly's advice.

By the end of June a major event happened that may have a large impact on the assembly: the Dutch government collapsed. The coalition, which was supposed to be in office for another year, collapsed after a crisis around Immigration and Integration Minister Rita Verdonk and the fact that coalition party D66 (also initiator of the citizens' assembly) lost trust in the cabinet and its Ministers resigned. New elections are planned for 22 November 2006, around the same time the citizen's assembly is to publish its report. Until then, the other coalition parties, the Christian Democrats and
the Liberal party, continue as a minority government.

While initially the collapse of the government seemed to pose a threat to the assembly, it now appears that it may actually increase our chances of success. Firstly, it is likely that the assembly is finally viewed as independent from D66. Secondly, it may mean that our advice may be taken into account in the coalitions agreement of the upcoming government.

During July and August the assembly was in recess, although smaller groups worked on researching specific topics of their interest in order to get a better idea about the pros and cons. Topics included the concept of an "anti-vote", the way Ministers are appointed, districts, an elected PM, and many more.

During the last weekend (1/2 September) the assembly met again for the first time after recess and it has entered the final phase of the process: decision making. Many members have done proposals for reform and our task is to bring the number of proposals down to 2 to 4 proposals in the coming weekends. During last weekend the assembly decided on what we believe are the core functions of an electoral system, what the conditions and requirements of such a system should be, and what elements we would like to keep, strengthen, or get rid of in our current system.

While just before summer some tensions arose as some members believed the assembly was moving too slow, would not be able to come up with a proper advice, or would not be taken seriously by politicians, it seems that now that our tasks are becoming more specific and concrete, many members are once more very positive and energetic. However, one member quit because of the above critique and two others left the assembly for personal reasons.

Concerning the actual direction, it seems to me that after an initial urge to drastically change the electoral system, many members of the assembly now seem more interested in retaining the current system and proposing some smaller changes. Apparently, many members feel that the current system of proportional representation with only 1 district and coalition governments, and the current party system, should not be touched.

The following weekend is planned for the end of September. On the 7th of October, the assembly will meet politicians and people from other organizations in order to "test" some preliminary proposals and find out about the feasibility of these proposals. A final weekend will be held in October, hopefully resulting in the publication of our report in November

I may have forgotten some news here, but I think I covered most of it. As the assembly has now reached its final decisional phase, there should be some interesting news coming up, and I will try to give an update more regularly.

Kind regards,

David Hulshuis

Eyewitness Account #2: From Henk van der Kolk, a political science professor at the University of Twente.

September 6, 2006

On Friday September 1 and Saturday September 2, the Dutch Citizens Assembly had its first meeting after the summer holidays and is now entering the decision phase. Between February and April, the members were taught about electoral systems (learning phase). During one of these meetings David Farrell, whose (translated) book on electoral systems is used by the members, visited the meeting, which contributed to the enthusiasm of the members. It was the first time I have seen a political scientist giving autographs and being photographed.

In May and June regional meetings were organized where citizens were asked to comment on some general statements formulated by the members of the CA. Turnout during these meetings was not extremely high; about 30 to 100. Some meetings were rather ‘heated’ (Amsterdam, for example), but most meetings were quiet and constructively contributed to the way CA members were thinking about electoral systems. In addition, members and others contributed to the discussions on the website of the Assembly. All website discussions were systematically analyzed in an extensive report written by a subgroup of the members. In the final meeting before the summer, politicians visited the meeting, telling them about both their work as politicians and about their ideas for the Dutch electoral system. In addition to the meetings, the members also participated in a web-based discussion session of about an hour. During this session, members were (anonymously) allowed to express opinions on the Dutch electoral system. Other members were asked (anonymously) to vote on these statements. Statements that were strongly supported were accepted as something of the group and reported back to the members in a written document.

Since the members are now entering the more ‘down to earth’ decision phase (in which concrete alternatives are discussed), they finally get the feeling they are really heading somewhere. During the summer about 30 (partly overlapping) suggestions for an improved electoral system were formulated by individual members and some small groups. In the September meeting, the members discussed the relevance of several criteria of an electoral system. In this meeting members expressed (again) a strong preference for a proportional list system. Most likely will be the adoption of some kind of open list system (abolishment or at least lowering of the personal threshold) in combination with a small electoral threshold or the option to vote for the party as such (an option currently not available in The Netherlands). It may also be, however, that the assembly will suggest keeping the current system.

Until now, only three members decided to leave the assembly; two for personal reasons and one because he lost confidence in the process. The other members are still very enthusiastic. Most members show up at all meetings, many members visited regional meetings, and some decided to organize their own regional or municipal meeting.

In the next meeting (at the end of September), members will decide which alternatives they will develop further. In October there will be a public meeting, where politicians, interest groups and political scientists will express their opinion on the various alternatives. In October the members will decide which alternative is to be adopted by the Assembly. In November the members will discuss the final texts.

News coverage on the assembly is low. The people I ask have never heard of the assembly. And since the political party which initiated the CA within the coalition (D66) left the coalition just before the summer, the impact of the CA is rather uncertain. Despite the fact that the other parties (VVD and CDA) expressed their support for the initiative, they seem to be unwilling to simply accept the advice given by CA.

An update on the Netherlands citizens assembly

A lot has been going on with the Netherlands citizens assembly. The learning phase is now over and it has moved on to its consultation phase. Here’s a report from David Hulsius, one of its members.

June 5, 2006

Hi Jim,

Here's another update from the Dutch citizens assembly! It's a bit long, but a lot has happened since my last e-mail. Feel free to shorten it.

In my last update I told about the first two weekends in which we were introduced to the world of electoral systems. We have done a lot since that weekend, so there's quite a lot of news.

In our third weekend (21/22 April) we looked at pros and cons and the effects of the different types of electoral systems on for instance proportionality, representation of women and minorities, stability of the government, activities of MPs, etc. The subject thus came closer to our central topic: what is it that we find most important in our electoral system and what might happen if we should change elements of that system. Also, during this weekend we prepared for the regional meetings that are currently being held all over the country. We decided on which topics we thought are important to be discussed during these meetings. Main topics were voter's influence on coalition forming, representation of minorities and women, and the role of parties versus individual MPs. Generally, this weekend was seen as very informative and useful by the members.

The next weekend (12/13 May) dealt much less with electoral systems. Instead we looked at the role of ourselves, the individual members, within the assembly process for the months to come. Chairmen, vice-chairmen and spokesmen for the subgroups were appointed as well as a media committee. Although much time, to the annoyance of some members, was spent on electing these people and thinking about one's role in the assembly we also looked at the content: debating positions were put forward in order to generate discussions during the regional meetings. A poll held in the previous weekend revealed some opinions in the assembly: The majority of the assembly does not want to change anything about the proportionality of our current system, the existence of coalition governments and the current high turnouts at elections (of around 80%). Some things the majority thinks should be changed are the number of parties in parliament, the way coalitions and the cabinet are formed, and the role of MPs.

Apart from the assembly weekends, assembly members can attend 1-day courses on dealing with media, using computers, training of debating skills, etc.

As the weekend descriptions show, we have now moved from a learning phase to a consultation phase. As we now know a lot about electoral systems, it is time to ask other people what they feel is important. This consultation phase consists mainly of 12 regional meetings that are currently being held in places all over the Netherlands. It is supported by a website, www.nederlandpraatmee.nl. In the last 2 months a media campaign was launched drawing attention to the existence of the assembly and to the regional meetings. The campaign consists of TV ads, billboards on train stations and large ads in both nationwide newspapers as well as some regional papers. Several members of the assembly have also contacted local media and councils in order to draw attention to the meetings.

The first meetings (in Amsterdam, Groningen and Rotterdam) were successful, although less people turned up than hoped for. During the meetings vivid debates were held. While a large part of the audience was enthusiastic about the assembly and seems to agree that it reflects Dutch society well, much less people feel that it is the electoral system itself that causes problems. There are also some doubts whether parliament will seriously look at the assembly's advisory report. Many people complained about the activities and attitudes of MPs, the power of parties and about how coalitions are formed. That some of these issues can in fact be affected by the electoral system did not occur to everybody. However, it also stresses that reform of the electoral system alone is not a universal remedy in order to solve perceived problems in Dutch politics. As 9 more meetings are planned I cannot draw any conclusions yet, but hearing the opinions of other Dutchmen sure is interesting and useful.

During the next weekend (9/10 June) we will not only be looking back at the first regional meetings, but we will also start discussing extensively what we personally feel should or should not be changed in our electoral system. British political studies author David Farrel, whose book on electoral systems we have read as "homework", will also be visiting. Furthermore, we will look at previous reform proposals that have been done in the past in the Netherlands. We also face the challenge that we will have to think about how the assembly will reach consensus on a final advise in October/November and how we are going to get there.

The assembly still seems very motivated and I feel the assembly is also functioning quite well. I do believe we will be able to come up with an inspired, well-founded advisory report. Unfortunately, the assembly has not received very much attention in national media yet. While assembly members themselves have successfully contacted local newspapers and radio stations, nationwide papers and tv stations have reported very little on the assembly. I think there are two major reasons for this. First of all, the media campaign was only fully launched after the learning-phase was finished, resulting in the fact that few people knew about our activities. Secondly, some media have, incorrectly l think, considered the assembly to be a "toy" of Minister of Government Reform Pechtold as his party D66, being a minor party in the coalition, has seen few of its plans executed so far this term. This is a shame as we are independent from Minister Pechtold and also because I think the very success of the assembly is largely dependent on its reputation and its acceptance by the public. Thus, media attention is in my view essential. Hopefully we can generate more media attention in the coming weeks and months!

Once again, a lot of text, but hopefully informative!

Kind regards

David Hulshuis

An update from the Netherlands after the first two sessions of its general assembly

The update comes from David Hulshuis, a member of the Netherlands Citizens Assembly, and Professor van der Kolk, who has been intimately involved in the planning for it.

From Professor Henk van der Kolk:

The Dutch Citizens Assembly on Electoral Systems (140 members) will have its third meeting on April 21 and 22. The first meeting was partly formal (officially installing the members), partly informal (meeting and getting to know one another) and partly dedicated to getting to know some basic ideas of electoral systems (what is an electoral formula, what are districts and what is a ballot structure?). The second meeting was dedicated to the details of the “five families of electoral systems” (plurality, majority, STV, list proportional and mixed). Through both lectures and group discussions, members were told about various alternatives to the current proportional list system used in the Netherlands. Many members were intrigued by the idea of having systems which combined plurality and proportional formula (mixed systems). Drop out has been low to non-existent so far and evaluations indicate most members think the “learning phase” so far is stimulating but at the same time not “over-demanding.” Of course, since the group is extremely heterogeneous, some indicate the lectures are too difficult, whereas some others think they are too simple. The overall evaluations, however, are very positive. The atmosphere among the group members is very good. The informal meetings on Friday evening in the bar are well attended.

For more information, check out www.burgerforumkiesstelsel.nl (in Dutch).

From David Hulshuis:

Dear Jim,

I'm sorry you haven't heard from me, but I have been rather busy and wasn't able to answer all my emails. I will give you an update on how things went so far.

The assembly gathered for the first time in The Hague on friday march 24th . This first weekend was mainly a festive meeting in which the assembly was installed and where the members got the chance to get to know each other. As 2 or 3 members had not replied to the invitation for the first weekend (for reasons I do not know), some people who had been on the reserve list were invited as well. In the second weekend it would become clear that due to this, the final number of members amounted to 142.

The installation meeting started off with a group photo of all the members taken at the parliaments' house. Right after, the assembly was installed in the stylish old parliament room, by vice prime-minister Zalm (as PM Balkenende was abroad) and minister Pechtold (the initiator of the assembly) . In his speech, Zalm praised the initiative, which he said was fully supported by the cabinet, and was enthusiastic about the fact that an assembly is an ideal way of bridging the gap between politicians and citizens. To me it seemed he is a bit skeptical about the eventual outcome, although of course he did not say this literally. Minister Pechtold was very enthusiastic about the enormous response to the assembly's invitations and advised the assembly to come up with an advice that is both widely supported by the Dutch people and also matches with Dutch national culture. The installation ended with a symbolic handover of a bag - or rather a "toolkit" - to all the members. Afterwards there was a drink with the members, the ministers and the secretariat/project group.

During a several course dinner there were discussions on rules of conduct, activities to get to know each other better, some entertainment and discussions on what we want to achieve. The following day consisted of lectures and workshops that dealt with the actual subject matter: electoral systems. The three main elements of electoral systems (voting procedure, election formulas and districts) were explained and discussed. All in all, it was a productive weekend, but most importantly it was a very good opportunity to socialize and to get to know other members.

It was great to see how the assembly really seems like a cross section of the Dutch population, including people from 18 to 86, native Dutch people and foreigners, people with all kinds of educations and backgrounds and from all parts of the country. It is interesting and quite inspiring to be working with such a varied group of people for the next couple of months. Also, I found it motivating that practically everybody, no matter whether they are usually into politics or not, is extremely motivated to participate.

On the 7th and 8th of April, the second weekend was held, also in The Hague. This was a far more serious weekend, with more in-depth education on different kinds of electoral systems. Both on friday night and during the whole saturday there were lectures and workshops. The major electoral system "families" were explained and assignments were done in groups in order to understand the different systems better.

In the next weekend (April 21/22) we will receive still more education about electoral systems and we will start talking about the effects and cons and pros of the different electoral systems. Also, we will be discussing what we personally believe is important in an electoral system. Finally, we will be preparing for meetings in May when member will hold regional meetings open for the public and meetings with organizations.

Apart from the assembly meetings, members have the opportunity to take extra courses in several subject like media training, computer training, debating training, training focusing on project-based working, etc.

So far everything was planned extremely well, with great attention for detail and room for feedback. Both practically (when it comes to accommodation, catering, communication, etc) and concerning the contents, the organization succeeded rather well at making it enjoyable and understandable for practically everyone. It was great to see that the people from the secretariat were looking forward to the weekends at least as much as the members. Both weekends were evaluated and the feedback will be used to further improve the next weekends.

Concerning media coverage: in Holland the forum has had some media attention, but mainly limited to TV news press coverage of the installation of the assembly. The organization has chosen to wait with a media campaign till after the education phase in order to make sure the members have a better idea about the subject and feel more comfortable talking about it. However, some press releases were put out for the Dutch media. A large campaign in the Netherlands will be started in May with billboard ads and TV commercials drawing attention to the assembly. I have no idea if there are plans for addressing foreign media.

I hope this is of interest for your news mail. I'd like to stress that the information above is my view on things, which might of course differ from other members' perceptions or the views of the organization. Nevertheless I have tried to give an objective account.

Kind regards,

David Hulshuis

Update from Netherlands Citizens Assembly

Here’s an updated and more complete chronology regarding the Dutch citizens assembly on reforming the electoral system.

SELECTION PROCESS

February
Governmental Reform and Kingdom Relations Minister Alexander Pechtold sends out 50,000 letters, with names randomly selected, to potential citizens assembly members. Note that this a correction of the 100,000 figure used in my last e-mail on this.

3,600 respondents indicate a willingness to participate in one of the informational meetings. (Exact number: 3,644).
3,200 show up at one of the nine regional informational meetings.
1,700 of those attending the meetings request that they be a candidate for the Assembly. (Exact number: 1,706).
Note that these numbers are rounded to the hundreds place.

March
140 are randomly selected on March 13, 2006. The names were to be drawn on March 11 but there was a logistical snafu (some postal codes didn’t match the provinces) leading to a two day delay.

The resulting assembly consists of 70 men and 70 women selected based on population density of the 12 provinces. The distribution over the age groups is as follows:
<20: 4%
21-30: 18%
31-40: 25%
41-50: 22%
51-60: 17%
61-70: 9%
71-80: 3%
81>: 2%

The final distribution is broadly representative of the Netherlands on the basis of age, sex, region, and socio-economic status. But there is under representation of foreign people and those with irregular work schedules (e.g., certain people in the health care industry).

DELIBERATION PROCESS

Phase 1, Learning, March-June
Five meetings on weekends from Friday evening through Saturday.
On Friday the 24th, the assembly will meet for the first time and will be installed officially by Minster Pechtold (Governmental Reform) and Minister Zalm (Finance & Vice Prime Minister).
March 24/25: Education
April 7/8: Education
April 21/22: Education
May 12/13: Education
June 9/10: Education & Deliberations
(June 23/24: Extra weekend if necessary)

Phase 2, Consultations, June-September
Full citizens assembly in recess.
Local meetings with interested individuals and organizations

Phase 3, Deliberations, September-October
Deliberations among citizens assembly members followed by a vote .
September 1/2: Decision making/debating
September 29/30: Decision making
October 20/21: Final meeting, publication of advisory report
(November 10/11: Extra weekend if necessary)

Unlike the British Columbia and proposed California citizens assembly, this is the end of the process. There is no referendum, just a recommendation sent to the government. If the current coalition in power is no longer in power late in the fall when the assembly issues its report, then the recommendations will more likely be ignored. A small party in the ruling coalition is the main advocate of the citizens assembly.

Here is a link to the Dutch citizens assembly site: www.burgerforumkiesstelsel.nl

English update on the progress of the Netherlands citizens assembly selection process

Summary: About 3% (3,000) of the 100,000 invited to join the Netherlands citizens assembly registered to seek a place. The next step in the selection process, on March 11, will be to reduce that number to 140.

Publication: Expatica News
Title: Places on citizens forum in big demand
Date: 14 February 2006

For the article, click here.

Exciting news concerning the citizens assembly proposal in the Netherlands

It hasn’t been easy following citizens assembly developments in the Netherlands because the key documents are in Dutch. But now I have some of the key information in English.

Without question, the proposed California citizens assembly is more ambitious than the one being implemented in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, the scope is tightly restricted to focus on voting systems. And though the government is sponsoring the citizens assembly, the assembly’s final recommendations will be advisory only. It has no authority to place its recommendations on the ballot for a referendum.

On the other hand, whereas a citizens assembly in California is a long shot, in the Netherlands it’s already happening—and happening soon. Letters have already gone out to approximately 100,000 randomly selected individuals, and the citizens assembly will start meeting in late March. Here is the chronology as presented to me.

July 8, 2005--The Interior Minister sends a letter to parliament announcing a citizens assembly to discuss a new electoral system for the Netherlands. An attempt to connect the assembly to a referendum fails, so the citizens assembly is only advisory.

September 15, 2005--A conference, organized by the Interior Minister, discusses how to implement a citizens assembly in the Netherlands. The agenda, in Dutch, can be found at http://www.minbzk.nl/contents/pages/43719/uitnodigingcongresburgerforumkiesstelsel.pdf.

February 1, 2006-- After receiving a final green light from the cabinet a few days before, the Interior Minister publicly announces the start of the citizens assembly. Letters are sent to 100,000 people inviting them to take part in the assembly, which is to start at the end of March. Citizens from urban areas are expected to be less responsive, so urban inhabitants are over-sampled. A multi-stage random selection process will closely follow that used in British Columbia. The composition of the assembly will be as follows: 140 members, divided equally between men and women. The final selection criteria, as in British Columbia, will only be geography and gender. There will be no safety valve, as in California, if there is some unexpected ethnic, socioeconomics, or other bias in the resulting sample. The convention chair will be Jacobine Geel, a theologian and TV-personality. Her biography, in Dutch, can be found at http://www.burgerforumkiesstelsel.nl/de-voorzitter.html. An expert group of political scientists and legal scholars will prepare the content for the meetings. The citizens assembly will meet five times from Friday evening through Saturday.

For additional information, in Dutch, see http://www.burgerforumkiesstelsel.nl/.