Our Budget, Our Economy Results & Report

Hello Fred, Today, AmericaSpeaks released its second round of analysis from the June 26 National Town Meeting. Please take a look at the narrative report, slide show, and 19 site reports that we have posted to our new Results page. Download the interim report to Congress. Over the next several days, we will be posting to the blog a series of articles that dig into the data that we have analyzed so far. In the meantime, there are a few things worth point out about these results. First of all, we have included some initial break downs of how voting was shaped by the ideological views of participants. Early in the event, we asked people to identify their ideological position on economic and fiscal issues. We were able to look within the keypad voting data to see where liberals and conservatives tended to share views and where they tended to differ (and by how much.) Second, we have also been able to break out data based on the site that participants attended. You can read the 19 site reports to get a sense for how views from your community related to views from across the country. Third, we were able to compile the percent of table groups that included each option in their deficit reduction packages. Fourth, we were able to correct the voting results in four questions that had been calculated incorrectly. It turned out that on those questions in which participants were able to vote for multiple options, a flaw in the voting software meant that the system was double counting (e.g. if you hit the number 3 button several times, it would record several votes for number 3 instead of just one.) Fortunately, Turning Point Technologies was able to go through the data files and eliminate double counting. Notably, this error essentially didn't change the relative position of options within a given category. Rather, the big difference is that it lowered the percentage support for many options in these four questions. We apologize for any confusion that this has caused. Turning Point Technologies has assured us that they will be correcting the software error. Fifth, we have completed a thorough analysis of the ideas submitted through the laptop computers at each table to supplement the real-time analysis conducted by the theme team on June 26. Our analysis has confirmed the work done by the theme team, but also picked up a few additional themes from the data. Finally, please note that we will have at least one additional round of analysis to release in the coming weeks. We are still conducting an analysis of how support for options correlated with one another for individual voting as well as across table packages. Additionally, we will add results from the Community Conversations, which have been coming in more slowly than we had anticipated. We'll also work to put up raw data from the laptop computers and the overall voting results, so that those of you who are interested in conducting your own analysis can do so. Please take a look at the reports and share them with others. Warm Regards, Carolyn Lukensmeyer President & Founder AmericaSpeaks AmericaSpeaks: Our Budget, Our Economy usabudgetdiscussion.org