America in One Room: A Deliberative Poll on Policy Proposals

In a unique civics project, ordinary voters from around Pennsylvania gathered to discuss and reach consensus on policy proposals, including election reform, healthcare, immigration, and housing. The event, organized by Stanford University's Deliberative Democracy Lab and the nonprofit Helena, aimed to assess the will of the people through a "deliberative poll." The participants, selected through a random and proportional process, engaged in small-group discussions and surveyed their opinions before and after the event, providing valuable insights into the decision-making process of ordinary voters.

Key Takeaways:

• The deliberative poll, which focused on election reform, healthcare, immigration, and housing, showed that ordinary voters can reach consensus on policy proposals, even on complex and contentious issues.
• The participants, who were selected through a random and proportional process, engaged in small-group discussions and surveyed their opinions before and after the event, providing valuable insights into the decision-making process of ordinary voters.
• The event highlighted the importance of providing accurate and complete information to participants, as the briefing materials provided to them contained errors, including a section on pre-canvassing mail ballots that stated Pennsylvania allows it, which is not the case.
• The organizers used AI tools to help simplify the language and address recommendations, but this led to some errors, including broken links and citations.
• The event showed that deliberative polling can prompt policy changes, as it did during the consideration of constitutional changes in Mongolia in 2019, and can be used to inform policy decisions, as House Speaker Joanna McClinton plans to use the results of the poll to inform her priorities in ongoing negotiations with the state Senate.
• The participants wrestled with a list of thorny election policy questions, including whether to install video cameras to monitor ballot drop boxes, audit a random sample of ballots to check the accuracy of election results, implement in-person early voting, and require photo identification to vote.

Statistics:

• 192 Pennsylvanians participated in the deliberative poll, selected through a random and proportional process to represent the state's geographic regions, demographics, and political characteristics.
• 80% to 100% of the text in the election portions of the briefing was found to be AI-generated, according to a tool used by Votebeat and Spotlight PA.
• The event highlighted the importance of accurate and complete information, with errors in the briefing materials that would have affected the participants' decisions on specific policy proposals.
• The organizers plan to note any errors in their final results and review their processes to ensure that such issues do not occur in the future.

Sources:

• Walker, C. (2025, June 13). America in One Room: A Deliberative Poll on Policy Proposals. Votebeat.
• American in One Room. (n.d.). About. Retrieved from
• Deliberative Democracy Lab. (n.d.). What is Deliberative Polling? Retrieved from
• Votebeat. (2025, May 13). Voting Election Legislation: Voter Identification, Mail Ballot Pre-canvassing. Retrieved from
• Texas Tribune. (2013, September 17). Book Excerpt: How Public Got Behind TX Wind Power. Retrieved from