How the forum Works

Once verified, Bainbridge Island Voters have access to five (5) ‘Forum Tools’ they can use to collectively learn about, deliberate over, and act on local Issues of Concern:

1) Forum Resource Hub - Contains Issue links to local government meeting videos and documents; media-generated artifacts such as newspaper articles, blog posts and TV reports. The ‘Hub’ is also your directory to Zoom or in-person ‘Study Sessions’ that focus on Issues of Concern in depth. These will include presentations by informed community members as well as discussions with (willing) government representatives and decision makers.

2) Discourse Channel - This Steward-moderated Channel is restricted to BI Voter Forum members and intended to not only facilitate a direct exchange of view points around community Issues of Concern, it is the place for members to raise new topics for deliberation and - if warranted by a vote of members - elevate those issues to more auditable consideration (see Tools 3 & 4).

3) Pol.is Survey - An AI-moderated ‘wiki-survey’ where members anonymously build and respond to questions around local Issues of Concern. Its algorithms are designed to surface any common ground within a wide range of opinions and, where possible, help create Forum action items, i.e., Petitions-to-Government (see Tool 5).

4) Sentiment Poll - A straight forward ‘Yes/No/Abstain’ response poll that anonymously registers and tracks our collective opinion on community Issues of Concern. Importantly, these Sentiment Polls are conducted on an End-to-End Verifiable voting platform making the auditable By-Precinct results a powerful tool in communicating with elected officials.

5) Precinct Petition - A Direct Action tool meant to ‘engage’ unresponsive local government. Importantly, while traditional petition forms require identifying voter signatures for legitimacy, Forum’s Verified By-Precinct Petitions protect members’ identity yet still carry the integrity needed to ‘deliver the message’ to elected representatives.