Too often, planners and others involved in land-use decision-making go to great lengths to inform the public and gather input in planning processes only to have a disappointing turnout at an evening meeting or low response rate on a survey. Despite hours of outreach effort, sometimes it’s just not possible to get the kind of feedback that planners hope for. Long work hours, childcare challenges, commuting, softball leagues, you name it—there are many reasons why people do not attend public meetings, and it’s not necessarily because they don’t care. 

The internet now provides an opportunity to gather input from those who are unable to give it face to face. Not only can citizens provide written comments via email, or by posting to community blogs or wikis, they can also provide formal responses to online surveys. There are a host of tools available where planners can create a survey online and post it for citizens’ responses. Results can be immediately available for respondents, allowing them to get a sense of where public opinion lies, but only after they have responded themselves. Some tools are free or available for minimal monthly or yearly fees. SurveyMonkey is one such tool that is very popular, in part because of the ease with which surveys can be created and customized. 

Keypad polling, featured in the December issue of Scenarios, allows participants in public meetings to instantaneously provide feedback to questions using a hand-held voting device. Online voting on the same questions can be used to reach those unable to attend the meetings. Currently, the Orton Family Foundation is working with the City of Durango on a method to allow the responses of at-home polling respondents to be integrated simultaneously with keypad polling results from a public meeting. The meeting will be broadcast over the local cable station, and those voting from home will see their votes tallied along with those voting in the meeting. 

Since there is no substitute for face-to-face contact in planning processes and online voting is not available to everyone, online voting works best as part of a larger strategy for gathering input. It provides an excellent opportunity to gather input from an increasingly busy citizenry. Online voting is fairly quick and easy, and can be held over several days, allowing citizens to vote at their convenience. In particular for communities with a high percentage of commuters or senior citizens unable to come to meetings, online voting can allow for greater public input on planning projects.