Outreach Random Selection Method
Lots can be drawn in different ways.
We draw lots to bring together as wide a variety of people as possible.
Even if the group of participants is small, we randomly draw participants from all the civil registers of an electoral district so that all residents, despite of citizenship actually have an equal chance to participate. If everyone we draw participated, we would have a relatively good representation of the total population in our group of participants.
In fact, it is not that easy to get all those randomly selected to participate.
Usually, only between 5-10% of those who have been contacted respond to an invitation to a participatory process. However, it is very important to us that also those people participate in an Electoral District Day who belong to the 90-95% of the population who usually do not respond.
That's why we use the so-called Outreach Random Selection Method at Es geht LOS.
In concrete terms, this means that we invite the people who have not responded again in person, at their door, and ask them what they need in order to be able to participate.
The procedure of the Outreach Random Selection Method
What do people need in order to participate?
We are not interested in persuading people.
Instead, we want to find out what prevents them from coming and what they need in order to be able to participate.
Also, it turns out time and again that people don't get the letters delivered or don't take them seriously the first time they read them, don't understand them, or for some other reason don't take a closer look at the invitation. Therefore, we always leave a letter with a reminder in the mailboxes of those people we do not meet.
Here you can find an article on the Outreach Random Selection Method by project lead Juliane Baruck.
Here you can order a book by Katharina Liesenberg and Linus Strothmann on the Outreach Random Selection Method (in German).
The project schedule
Electoral Districts at a glance
Info for people selected