NEW materials on VOTING, join online forums & a webinar

June 28, 2021

The National Week of Conversation (June 14-20, 2021) marked the official national launch of the Elections: How Should We Encourage and Safeguard Voting? initiative.

The National Issues Forums Institute's (NIFI) participation in the National Week of Conversation included a webinar about convening and moderating forums using the new elections issue discussion guide, and five online forums that used a variety of online platforms to help participants deliberate about elections.

Webinar presenters Betty Knighton, Brad Rourke, and Patty Dineen introduced participants to the issue guide framework and supporting materials available to use to enrich deliberative forums in person and online. The webinar was recorded and can be viewed here. You can also download a PDF version of the PowerPoint slides that were used during the webinar by clicking here.

Explore the issue discussion guide

Elections: How Should We Encourage and Safeguard Voting?

This issue advisory presents three options for moving forward, each reflecting a different view of the problem and each suggesting a different set of ideas about what should be done. Most people will find something to agree with in all three approaches, but each also has trade-offs, risks, or drawbacks that need to be taken into account and worked through.

In thinking about different approaches, discussion participants will consider these questions:

Would having uniform national standards for voting, instead of having state and local officials continue to set the rules, give us more confidence?
Do ID requirements for voting, in order to help maintain the system’s integrity, merely discourage voters by placing hurdles in their way?
Would Americans see the voting system as more legitimate if the Electoral College were eliminated in favor of a national popular vote?
Could some of the changes proposed here have unintended consequences? Could they fix some problems but cause new ones we haven’t anticipated?

These are not the only possible options, nor the only questions. They are starting points for weighing alternatives and reaching a sound judgment.

Click here to download the issue guide and companion material including a conversation starter video, a moderator's guide, a participant questionnaire, and PowerPoint slides for use in online forums.

Let us know what you are doing

Do you have news or events related to the deliberative public forums work you do? We'd love to be able to share what you're doing. Please send information to Patty Dineen.

If you are planning to hold a forum or workshop, please post a few details in the Events area of the National Issues Forums (NIF) website by logging in and clicking here.

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About Deliberation in National Issues Forums

National Issues Forums issue guides are designed to stimulate public deliberation, which is a way of making decisions together that is different from discussion or debate. The purpose of deliberative forums is to inform collective action. As citizens, we have to make decisions together before we can act together, whether with other citizens or through legislative bodies. Acting together is essential for addressing problems that can't be solved by one group of people or one institution. These problems have more than one cause and therefore have to be met by a number of mutually reinforcing initiatives with broad public participation.

About the National Issues Forums Institute

The National Issues Forums Institute's mission is to promote the use of public deliberation in schools, colleges, civic organizations, and religious institutions in the United States. The institute's board members are volunteers drawn from leaders in government, colleges and universities, libraries, civic organizations, the media, and medicine. For more information visit www.nifi.org.