Back to Case-studies

Townhall meeting in Kentucky turns tables on polarization

Headline: Residents of Bowling Green, Kentucky, used Polis to find agreement on local issues despite politicians' attempt to sow discord. When: 2018 Where: Kentucky, USA Size: 2000

Details: When a medium sized city in Kentucky was ravaged and divided by national hot button issues, town residents used Polis to identify local issues on which there was consensus, gain an understanding of their collective will, and then use the documentation provided by Polis to hold their officials accountable to act on that consensus. Thanks to media partner, Bowling Green Daily News, this case had very high participation rates relative to total population size: 2000 out of 65000 of the population participated, or 3%.

Links:

• Facilitation partner: American Assembly https://americanassembly.org/

  • Their project page: http://www.civic-assembly.org
  • Direct link: http://www.civic-assembly.org/bowling-green-report/

• Media Partner: Bowling Green Daily News https://www.bgdailynews.com/

  • Their project page: http://www.bgdailynews.com/civicassembly/

• Open data: https://github.com/compdemocracy/openData/tree/master/american-assembly.bowling-green

• Video of the event: https://www.facebook.com/bgdailynews/videos/vb.27436346345/10155923182626346/?type=2&theater

• Polis Report: https://pol.is/report/r2xcn2cdbmrzjmmuuytdk

• Raw data https://github.com/compdemocracy/openData/tree/master/bowling-green.american-assembly

• Media:

  • http://www.bgdailynews.com/news/first-ever-civic-assembly-gives-residents-chance-to-be-heard/article_0a17254e-a8bb-5f4f-884f-9d0617ab9c08.html 
  • https://web.archive.org/web/20210414093745/https://civichall.org/civicist/testing-tech-consensus-purple-town/