[kmiroslav]

Technically, sure.

Practically... it's a 52%/48% vote. Hardly a mandate. Some people say a revote might yield an opposite result, which means the current outcome is probably under the margin of error.

It wouldn't exactly be a miscarriage of democracy to not follow through and see how things unfold in the next couple of years, and maybe vote again to see if the gap widens or if our country remains split in the middle on the issue.

At any rate, this comment about the situation is frighteningly deep and chilling.

[jimktrains2]

Is there a margin of error with a vote like this? Isn't it a direct count of people who want their opinion known? It isn't sampling and trying to figure out what everyone wants.

[Teever]

While a margin of error is required for polls due to inherent limitations of accuracy and scale if your democratic institutions have a margin of error you're not doing democracy right.

[weezer]

That's assuming that people correctly know and express the opinion that they hold. Asking people directly is still somewhat of a noise signal. Also, the act of viewing the result of the vote seems to have changed people expressed opinions at least.

[ianai]

I don't know about 'error' but there's definitely room for valid decision changes. You can take most things back within a grace period after signing the dotted line, after all.

[jimktrains2]

But that isn't what this measured. Like how the US census is suppose to be an exact count of everyone on April 1; it may change due to births and deaths, but on that day (at some time) it is suppose to be exact.

A vote is an exact count of the will of the people at a given time. There is no error. People can change their minds, but that isn't what the vote represent. That is, a vote is what people who chose to vote said they wanted, not a probabilist representation of what the people as a whole want.

[shawkinaw]

Given that people apparently keep changing their minds right up to voting day (indicated by polls), I think there is actually a lot of noise in the result.

[voxic11]

There is no such thing as a margin of error in a democratic vote, unless you mean votes which were miscounted or uncounted but that is very very unlikely to account for a 4 percentage point difference.

[kmiroslav]

You're right, I misused the term. Statistically, I'm sure the votes were counted accurately and that margin of error is extremely small and would not invalidate that vote.

I was referring to the fact that when a result is so close, the vote might have a different outcome simply based on who shows up to vote that day. If there's a revote, more people against leaving might show up because they didn't realize they would lose. And then if a third vote is held, the result might swing again.

Our country is clearly split right now, but the road ahead for the brexit outcome is terrifying and full of unknowns, as the commentator acutely outlined. Is it worth going through so much turmoil when there is barely an inch above a majority that voted this way?

My answer would be a resounding "yes" if the result was 70%/30%. But 52%/48%? Maybe we should spend some time thinking this through before enacting Article 50. And all the current leaders seem to think this way right now given how discreet they have become as the reality is slowly sinking in.

[vacri]

So, given the apparent shock and the extremely large, irreversible changes that will occur if the referendum result is adhered to, why not hold another referendum, and make it binding this time? More voters have signed the petition for a revote than were the difference in the referendum; clearly this is an indication that the people don't want such a destructive change based in a single, simple-majority vote that many people didn't take seriously enough in the first place.

The referendum was also made non-binding for a reason. It was made that way exactly so that Cameron had the freedom to do something like he has just done, maybe not specifically the way he did it, but leaving the door ajar to avoid such an incredibly damaging result.

[tzs]

> Practically... it's a 52%/48% vote. Hardly a mandate. Some people say a revote might yield an opposite result, which means the current outcome is probably under the margin of error.

I think a good case can be made that in general close votes on this kind of thing should automatically have a revote in six months to a year, because seeing how the results were distributed geographically might change some minds.

For instance, perhaps many people who voted to leave did so on the assumption that the UK would remain fully intact after leaving, but now seeing the results from Scotland and Northern Ireland might fear that one or both of those will leave the UK and would prefer an intact UK as part of the EU over an independent UK that just has England, Wales, and Gibraltar.

It would also probably be a good idea to hold another vote after the negotiations with the EU on what the relationship will be after exit are done, or at least to the point that there is a good idea of what the relationship will be. If that relationship is better than stay voters thought the UK would get, some of them could swing to leave. If that relationship is worse than leave voters thought the UK would get, some of them could swing to stay.

[klagermkii]

Sure it might not be a clear mandate, and I think it was a stupid bet to make, but it met the condition set and they were very clear before the vote what would happen.

Normally it might not be that big a deal but it exists in the context of people frustrated with the EU and politics in general for being "undemocratic" and supposedly not listening to them. In this particular case by ignoring the result of it, you would potentially be validating those fears, and play into euro-skeptic views across the whole of Europe.

[qq66]

The extent to which a vote is going to be binding needs to be made extremely clear before the vote, and cannot depend on which way the vote goes. It's fine to say that "we will revote if the margin is less than 10%" before the election, but the government throws its entire legitimacy into question if it tries to say "You voted the wrong way, so we're going to pretend that it never happened."

[mcphage]

> The extent to which a vote is going to be binding needs to be made extremely clear before the vote

I thought it was made clear beforehand that this vote was not binding? Am I misinformed?