"People who didn't vote" means "people who could legally have voted, but didn't" (not people who weren't allowed to vote).
Even if you accept the (rather strange) idea that the result of a non-binding referendum "won" by a small majority by a campaign based on outright lies with evidence that a lot of people have since changed their minds should somehow be respected as "the will of the people" (which I do not), this nicely illustrates that it's very far from clear what the will of the people really is. The will of which people ? We don't actually know why the blue sector didn't vote. Did they just not care one way or the other ? Were they unable to choose ? Would they have voted differently if they'd been given more complex options, e.g., "remain but only if we can get a better deal", "leave but only if a good deal can be arranged". What would have happened if there had been a simple "abstain" option ?
We don't know. Rules are rules, so the small minority means that the Leave vote won. Except they only won an advisory referendum, which doesn't have quite the same ring to it. In any case, if there are future referendums on issues of this magnitude - and I'm not at all convinced there should be - it would probably be a good idea to investigate these sorts of issues first.
Originally shared by Chris Blackmore (The Walrus)
This is a diagram I just made, to help me visualise the result of the advisory referendum (a sort of opinion poll) we just had, about our membership of the EU. I made this because #brexit people keep whinging when I say they didn't win a huge, colossal, epochal, earth-shaking, crushing victory.
Feel free to share it.
Thanks for the share, and the amplification of the points made.
ReplyDelete"won" by a small majority by a campaign based on outright lies
ReplyDeleteIf you're going to start holding elections and referendums to higher standards then you're verging on "alternate reality" science fiction. ;-)
I'm of the opinion (possibly influenced by my home country's compulsory voting laws) that a majority is a 50+% of the voting population, not 50% of countable votes. Especially when the question is "change something" vs "don't change something", the affirmative response should require 50% of the voting pop, because it's reasonable to count the abstains etc as no.
ReplyDeleteAnd, looking at Australia's referendum results, the answer turns out almost always to be no. :-)
Dogmatic Pyrrhonist Because nothing says freedom and democracy like the phrase "compulsory voting".
ReplyDeleteOr, in more colloquial terms, unmotivated morons voting at gunpoint.
In completely unrelated news, the original post attracted a lot of idiots.
ReplyDeleteRobert Rambusch freedom and democracy are not the same things.
ReplyDeleteDogmatic Pyrrhonist If they were I needn't have mentioned them both. ;-)
ReplyDeleteYou hit the problem on the head Dogmatic Pyrrhonist , and I think Robert Rambusch had a reflex reaction to the word compulsory voting (shouldn't that be mandatory voting btw? Just nitpicking). I know I did. For a very long time. When I was a teenager, I used to mock the Swiss (I live just across the border) that held elections seemingly every month (in reality only a few times a year, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_Switzerland ).
ReplyDeleteThe Swiss run a semi-representative system. They elect officials, but they still get to decide on changing legislation. Direct democracy is the only true democracy. Electing representatives is democracy for about thirty seconds, while you're in the voting booth.
The bottom line is that voting is hard work. That is, if you want to do it well. It takes a lot of effort to gather the facts, examine them, find learned opinions and evaluate them, and then take time to go and stand in queues.
Quite a few people would rather continue watching sport on the toob while sipping beer. Less effort. Watch a few adverts, get incensed by whatever the loudest idiot spouts, maybe shout with them to feel better. Maybe go voting, if it's not too far.
I think the reason such a large proportion of the public do not vote is not necessarily apathy, could be they are simply not of the belief that democracy works, that is they may feel democracy is a sham, and it will make no difference what party is in power. The politician is only believed by a few, and new voters especially, that have not yet lived through several revolutions of the merry-go-round will vote because they believe in the ideal. Older voters could be more jaded, and mistrustful of the politician, and so may not bother voting for that reason.
ReplyDeleteRhys Taylor well the education of the public regarding what they're actually voting on can clearly be held to a higher standard. Eg: the Scottish independence vote.
ReplyDeleteDogmatic Pyrrhonist True, there's certainly room for improvement there. It's not easy, but it is possible.
ReplyDeleteRhys Taylor Aye. Democracy is founded on the will of an informed population. The informed bit keeps getting left out.
ReplyDelete