Research Report: Do Public Meetings Represent the Public?

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Abstract
The opinions obtained at public meetings appear to broadly represent those of the relevant public if the meetings are well publicized, if they are held so that all parties have easy and equal access, and if all participants at the meeting are consulted about their opinions. That is the finding of this report, which analyzes three public participation research projects. The three projects were designed to measure the representativeness of meeting participants compared to the general population on demographic characteristics, opinions on policies, and opinion variance. The research findings were consistent despite differences in the public meetings in scale (one city wide, one county wide, and one statewide), subject, level of controversy, and length.

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