Over the weekend of June 5-9, a representative sample of registered Pennsylvania voters gathered in Philadelphia to deliberate in depth about issues facing the state and the nation. When first contacted, they answered an extensive questionnaire about policy proposals from across the political spectrum that could possibly address key issues facing the state and the nation. At the end of the weekend they completed the same questionnaire. 175 voters from across the state were successfully recruited to participate in the discussions. Another 502 were assigned to a control group that completed the same questionnaires over the same period, but did not deliberate. The process is called Deliberative Polling® and followed the format of 160 previous projects around the world. Like the other America in One Room events, this experiment was sponsored and convened by Helena, a global problem solving organization working with the Deliberative Democracy Lab at Stanford University, and Public Opinion Strategies, a leading public opinion research firm that conducted the recruitment and selection of the samples and administered the survey questionnaires.

What would the voters of Pennsylvania really think about the issues if they discussed them in depth in a civil and evidence-based environment for a long weekend? Summary results are sketched below.