[exox]

Given the 72.2% turnout[1] it was just 37.5% of the voting-eligible population that voted for Brexit.

The whole Brexit saga makes me think more than ever that voting on issues of such national importance (including general elections) should be made mandatory.

[1]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/24/how-did-turnout-a...

[avar]

The referendum to enter the EU had a 64% turnout with 67.23% voting yes & 32.77% voting no. So that's around 43% that voted to enter[1].

Regardless, I think this entire line of reasoning makes no sense. You could dismiss pretty much any election by multiplying the "yes" votes with voter turnout to get less than 50%.

That's just how democracies work, if you don't care enough to vote you don't get a say, that doesn't mean the opinions of people who do turn up should be given less weight.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_European_Commun...

[cyphar]

> You could dismiss pretty much any election by multiplying the "yes" votes with voter turnout to get less than 50%.

Not in Australia. Here we have compulsory voting, and referendums have to have a double majority in order to pass (so there's no question about whether the majority of the people actually wanted the change).

So multiplying by voter turnout would not meaningfully change the results (voter turnout is >95%). Maybe more countries should adopt mandatory voting...

[gravypod]

Aren't Australians encouraged to not write "fuck you" and things on the ballots as people sarcastically participate? [0]

Couldn't you just do the exact same thing with "valid votes" and say the same thing that the parent has said?

[0] - http://www.techly.com.au/2016/06/30/australia-votes-whats-do...

[cyphar]

> Aren't Australians encouraged to not write "fuck you" and things on the ballots as people sarcastically participate?

Yes, donkey voting is a problem as well. But there's a stigma around it as well (as that article shows). Invalid voting on the other hand doesn't have a stigma around it.

> Couldn't you just do the exact same thing with "valid votes" and say the same thing that the parent has said?

Maybe. But if someone makes the decision to tick random boxes rather than write "fuck you" then it's clear that they've made a decision to make a vote. It's a grey area, and I despise the issue of donkey voting, but you can't deny that the person has "had their say".

However, the number of invalid votes is counted though. And even considering invalid votes, the percentage of valid votes is better than most countries which don't have mandatory voting. Not to mention that invalid voting is known to be a method of abstaining from voting. I don't know what the stats are for donkey voting, but I doubt that a large enough portion of people do it for it to classify as that large of an issue.

[Mithaldu]

How are voters compelled in practice?

[cyphar]

You get a fine if you're on the electoral roll but were not counted as "having voted". Since we have a private ballot system, you can write whatever you want on your ballot (so you can "abstain" by writing "fuck you all" on your ballot and it'll be considered an invalid vote). You don't get fined for placing an invalid vote, you just get fined if you don't show up (and didn't vote by post and so on).

We have many different ways of voting, so it's designed to be as easy as possible for people to vote (in contrast to what I've heard from Americans). The fines are not that bad for first-time offenders but they're large enough that it discourages people from not voting (the fine gets larger for subsequent offenders).

The rules for voting in elections and referendums are also the same (so the same fines apply).

[Mithaldu]

Thank you, excellent explanation. And i don't think i even mind the system. :)

[Tomte]

In the Austrian case I suppose "not at all", but usually compulsory voting doesn't mean that you're dragged to the urn, but that you're paying a fine if you donÄt vote.

[Veen]

> That's just how democracies work

Our democracy is a parliamentary democracy in which Parliament is supreme. We elect representatives so that they can make the decisions for us.

Any referendum is really just advisory.

[Nursie]

I always wonder with people who say this - if the vote had gone the other way but Parliament decided to leave the EU anyway, would you still be saying the vote was only advisory so it's fine?

[zigzigzag]

Rhetorical question, isn't it. Of course they wouldn't.

Support for the EU is deeply rooted in a belief that people can't/shouldn't rule themselves: they need to delegate 'complex matters' to elite experts who, of course, only have the people's best interests at heart. The sudden belief that the referendum was only a fancy opinion poll entirely fits with this narrative.

[Veen]

> deeply rooted in a belief that people can't/shouldn't rule themselves

Of course I believe that. Everyone who isn't a rabid libertarian or anarchist believes that, whichever side of political spectrum they come from. I imagine you believe it too to some degree. In representative democracies we don't rule ourselves, we choose the people who will rule us, which isn't the same thing at all.

There's a lot of valid arguments to be had around the process of choosing, the institutions, and what power those chosen should have, but no serious person believes that the best solution for a species that lives in societies is for every member to rule themselves in every particular.

[zigzigzag]

That's ridiculous. Just look at Switzerland. Dozens of referendums a year, pretty much the opposite of anarcho-libertarianism. The richest and most successful countries also the ones that tend to use referendums a lot, have lots of checks and balances and don't simply "choose rulers" to the extent practically possible.

[Nursie]

I think (s)he was talking about collectively ruling ourselves rather than individually.

You don't have to be a rabid libertarian or anarchist to think that Direct Democracy has something to offer.

[avar]

To be clear, I'm not claiming that the result of this referendum has to be carried out. I honestly don't know enough about British politics to say to what extent that's the case.

I'm saying that dismissing a popular vote on the basis of voter turnout doesn't make sense. E.g. only 66.4%[1] voted in the last UK general election. Would anyone argue that the entire government of the UK is illegitimate on that basis?

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_electio...

[nothrabannosir]

That's just how democracies work

Not really, no. Especially if it's not clear there's an option to say "idk". Say you care very much but don't know what's best? Does your vote not matter, now? If so, doesn't that make the election wrong? But how do you express that?

There may be an answer to this deep inside some legislature chapter XVI section 16 paragraph b, but if people don't know, does that matter?

Anyway, not saying that was the case for brexit. But "That's just how X works" is typically not the strongest argument. There are a hundred ways to implement a democracy, and they all have their own flaws.

[SomeStupidPoint]

> Say you care very much but don't know what's best? Does your vote not matter, now?

Yes, your vote doesn't matter in that case, because you have no information to convey to the system: you have no preference. Only votes which are conveying a preference about how the situation should be handled are useful. There's no reason to distinguish between "I care, but don't have anything to say about the topic" and "I don't care" if you're not even willing to vote based on which candidate talks about the issues you care about, at least as far as elections go.

Write a letter or something.

Ed: In a slightly less snarky sense, your vote really doesn't matter at that point. The point you should participate in the process, if you feel candidates aren't addressing your issues, is way before that. It just requires actual amounts of time and effort to shift platforms, though, and participation beyond checking a box every year/few years.

[josho]

Good point. You can express an I don't know by spoiling your ballot. Unfortunately not many people consider this option. Nor is this approach perfect.

[gravypod]

> Especially if it's not clear there's an option to say "idk".

There is: you don't go to vote.

[jasonjei]

That's not the same. It just means the yes/no vote is just proportional to those that voted. 50 people voting yes and 50 people voting no would be split evenly at 50% for both opinions. But if you have 50 people voicing idk, you have 33% yes, 33% no, and 33% idk.

[anon1385]

Well, the UK has run referendums that way in the past. Most famously the Scottish devolution referendum in 1979. Yes got 51.62% but did not win because there was a requirement for 40% of the electorate to vote Yes for it to pass.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_devolution_referendum...

[pjc50]

Yup. One of the reasons why referenda are such a bad idea in the UK is that every single one has been run with different rules, usually for the purpose of putting a thumb on the scale. The Brexit referendum excluded resident EU nationals - who are allowed to vote in Parliamentary elections.

[tehwalrus]

Are they? I thought they could only vote in local authority and European elections.

Parliamentary is only British and commonwealth citizens.

[pjc50]

Sorry, I was confused because they're allowed to vote in Scottish Parliamentary elections.

http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/faq/voting-and-registr...

"Citizens of EU countries other than the UK, the Republic of Ireland, Cyprus and Malta cannot vote in UK Parliamentary general elections, but can vote at local government elections, Scottish Parliamentary elections if they are registered in Scotland, National Assembly for Wales elections if they are registered in Wales and Greater London Authority elections if they are registered in London. They can also vote at European Parliamentary elections if they fill in a form stating that they wish to vote in the UK and not in their home country"

Bonus points to people who can give a rational non-imperialist argument as to why Ireland, Cyprus and Malta nationals get that privilege.

[goodcanadian]

Bonus points to people who can give a rational non-imperialist argument as to why Ireland, Cyprus and Malta nationals get that privilege.

Well . . . the reason is pretty much imperialist in nature. In recent history, citizens of those countries (along with citizens of commonwealth countries) were unequivocally citizens of the United Kingdom. When the countries became independent, the UK government chose not to take away those erstwhile citizens' right to vote.

[cpcallen]

The reason is that the UK is best buddies with Ireland, while Cyprus and Malta are members of the Commonwealth and so their citizens get the same privileges as all other Commonwealth citizens (including the right to vote in UK parliamentary elections).

That's not a non-imperialist argument, but it is the reason.

[colmvp]

Kind of surprised that only 72.2% turned out, given the implications of the vote. When Quebec was voting for sovereignty in 1995, 93.52% of the eligible voters in the province voted. When Scotland voted for the same recently, it was around 85%.

In any case though, if people don't want to show up, then why force them? I'd put the 'blame' on the campaigners for not underlining the importance to get out to vote to constituents.

[notahacker]

"Do you prefer this complex, useful but far-from-ideal trade bloc to a raft of (mostly implausible) hypothetical alternative arrangements?" is a somewhat less basic question than "which country do you want to be part of?" though. 72.2% is high, considering the turnout at UK General Elections.

[youngtaff]

Don't forget there were lots of people e.g. EU nationals who live and pay tax in the UK, who didn't have a vote

[lordnacho]

This kind of argument only makes sense if there's a reason to think the people who didn't vote would be significantly different to the people who did.

For instance you say only 37.5% of them voted to leave. That means you'd have to find fewer than 12.5% of the 27.8% who'd agree with them, basically 45% of the non-voters.

So you need some sort of explanation of why a selection of the population, which is a lot of people, came out 52-48, while the non-voters would have come out 45-55.

Without such an explanation, you'd have to think the law of large numbers would suggest that people who didn't vote were pretty much the same as the ones who did.