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Televoting (also telephone voting, phone voting, and call-in voting) is a method of decision making and opinion polling conducted by telephone. Televoting can also extend to voting by SMS text message via a mobile cell phone.
Televoting involves broadcasters providing an audience with different telephone numbers associated with contestants participating; the outcome is decided by the number of calls to each line. Televotes are most commonly used to determine weekly results in reality competitions, such as Big Brother , Dancing with the Stars / Strictly Come Dancing , The Voice , Idol , and The X Factor franchises.
In 1997, the Eurovision Song Contest began to phase in public televoting to determine its winner, with a mass rollout beginning in 1998. Initially, televotes completely replaced the previous system, in which entries were scored by regional juries. These changes led to the increased prominence of "bloc voting"—in which a country's voting pattern would commonly favour neighbouring nations (such as Scandinavian, Baltic, Balkan, and CIS countries), and countries with similar cultures (UK and Ireland). From 2009 to 2015, most countries used a 50/50 split between a jury and televoting results. Since 2016, most countries still use a televoting process and a jury to determine the results, the votes are no longer combined and instead treated separately.
A televote is initiated by random sampling of a population by means of random digit dialling.[ citation needed ] Those contacted are requested to volunteer to receive written background briefing materials regarding a particular issue, that have been prepared by a panel of representatives of different stakeholder groups affected by that issue, and incorporating various views or perspectives.[ citation needed ] Volunteers are requested to discuss the issue amongst their families and friends until they have reached a decision.[ citation needed ] At the conclusion of this period they are polled again by telephone in order to determine their views.[ citation needed ]
Televoting is a more cost-effective method of democratic deliberation than many alternatives such as deliberative polling, as it does not require the participants to meet in person.[ citation needed ]
Common to other deliberative democratic techniques, it also tends to produce more reasoned decisions than "raw" opinion polling, because participants are exposed to various perspectives other than their own in the briefing materials that they receive.[ citation needed ]
Televoting may be less effective than other methods of democratic deliberation in which a trained moderator or facilitator is available in person to ensure that groups seriously deliberate on the issue before them.[ citation needed ]
Deliberation is a process of thoughtfully weighing options, for example prior to voting. Deliberation emphasizes the use of logic and reason as opposed to power-struggle, creativity, or dialogue. Group decisions are generally made after deliberation through a vote or consensus of those involved.
Deliberative democracy or discursive democracy is a form of democracy in which deliberation is central to decision-making. Deliberative democracy seeks quality over quantity by limiting decision-makers to a smaller but more representative sample of the population that is given the time and resources to focus on one issue.
Participatory democracy, participant democracy, participative democracy, or semi-direct democracy is a form of government in which citizens participate individually and directly in political decisions and policies that affect their lives, rather than through elected representatives. Elements of direct and representative democracy are combined in this model.
An opinion poll, often simply referred to as a survey or a poll, is a human research survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of questions and then extrapolating generalities in ratio or within confidence intervals. A person who conducts polls is referred to as a pollster.
A straw poll, straw vote, or straw ballot is an ad hoc or unofficial vote. It is used to show the popular opinion on a certain matter, and can be used to help politicians know the majority opinion and help them decide what to say in order to gain votes.
A deliberative opinion poll, sometimes called a deliberative poll, is a form of opinion poll taken before and after significant deliberation. Professor James S. Fishkin of Stanford University first described the concept in 1988. The typical deliberative opinion poll takes a random, representative sample of citizens and engages them in deliberation on current issues or proposed policy changes through small-group discussions and conversations with competing experts to create more informed and reflective public opinion. Deliberative polls have been run around the world, including recent experiments to conduct discussions virtually in the United States, Hong Kong, Chile, Canada and Japan.
Noocracy is an ideal type of government where decisions are delegated to those deemed wisest. The idea is classically advanced, among others, by Plato, al-Farabi and Confucius.
An open-access poll is a type of opinion poll in which a nonprobability sample of participants self-select into participation. The term includes call-in, mail-in, and some online polls.
The winner of the Eurovision Song Contest is selected by a positional voting system. The most recent system was implemented in the 2023 contest. Each participating country is awarded two sets of 12, 10, 8–1 points, based on their ten favourite songs. One set of picks from their professional jury, and the other from televoting. Only televoting is used in the semi-finals. Both jury and televoting is used in the final.
Psychology Beyond Borders (PBB) is an international non-profit organisation focused on the research and treatment of the mental and community health impacts of terrorism and natural disasters. It was created by Issues Deliberation Australia/America (IDA), an international non-partisan public policy and political psychology think tank, in 2005.
James S. Fishkin is an American political scientist and communications scholar. He holds the Janet M. Peck Chair in International Communication in the Department of Communication at Stanford University, where he serves as a professor of communication and, by courtesy, political science. He also acts as the director of Stanford’s Deliberative Democracy Lab. Fishkin is widely cited for his work on deliberative democracy, with his proposition of Deliberative Polling in 1988 being particularly influential. Together with Robert Luskin, Fishkin's work has led to over 100 deliberative polls in 28 countries.
Public consultation, public comment, or simply consultation, is a process by which members of the public are asked for input on public issues. This can occur in public meetings open to all in written form, as well as in deliberative groups. Surveys and deliberative groups can be conducted with self-selected citizens or with statistically representative samples of the population which enables the identification of majority opinion. Its main goals are to improve public involvement and influence, as well as the transparency and efficiency of government projects, laws, or regulations.
Radical democracy is a type of democracy that advocates the radical extension of equality and liberty. Radical democracy is concerned with a radical extension of equality and freedom, following the idea that democracy is an unfinished, inclusive, continuous and reflexive process.
In governance, sortition is the selection of public officials or jurors at random, i.e. by lottery, in order to obtain a representative sample.
A citizens' assembly is a group of people selected by lottery from the general population to deliberate on important public questions so as to exert an influence. Other types of deliberative mini-publics include citizens' jury, citizens' panel, people's panel, people's jury, policy jury, consensus conference and citizens' convention.
Epistemic democracy refers to a range of views in political science and philosophy which see the value of democracy as based, at least in part, on its ability to make good or correct decisions. Epistemic democrats believe that the legitimacy or justification of democratic government should not be exclusively based on the intrinsic value of its procedures and how they embody or express values such as fairness, equality, or freedom. Instead, they claim that a political system based on political equality can be expected to make good political decisions, and possibly decisions better than any alternative form of government .
John Gastil currently holds a joint appointment as Professor of Communication Arts & Sciences and Professor of Political Science at Penn State University. He is known for his research on deliberative democracy and group decision making.
A deliberative referendum is a referendum that increases public deliberation through purposeful institutional design.:557 The term "deliberative referendum" stems from deliberative democracy,:509 which emphasises that "the legitimacy of decisions can be increased if...decisions are preceded by authentic deliberation.":903 Deliberative design features can promote public deliberation prior to and during the referendum vote to increase its actual and perceived legitimacy.:910 Deliberative referendums encourage open-minded and informed reasoning, rather than rigid "pre-formed opinions".:508-512 "[A]fter deliberations, citizens routinely alter their preferences".:910
America in One Room was a 2019 event that assembled the largest representative sample of the American voting electorate in history to discuss polarizing political issues. It utilized a method called deliberative polling, led by Stanford Professors James Fishkin and Larry Diamond of the Center for Deliberative Democracy. The event was funded and operated by Helena, an organization that implements projects to address global challenges.
Mongolia's Law on Deliberative Polling is a law that codified the deliberative polling process into Mongolian law. It was ratified on February 9, 2017. It requires deliberative polling on potential amendments to the Mongolian Constitution before they are considered by parliament. It is the first ever instance of a country incorporating deliberative polling into its national law.
