> > What exactly do you mean by unjust? I thought the whole point of the referendum was to allow a direct democratic vote on a subject. How does it become unjust that the majority of the population (even if it's only a 50% + 1 vote majority) 'wins' the referendum?
>
> What I mean is simply that a 50% - 1 'minority' loses. I think that is too large a part of the votes to go against.
>
> While I don't like to suggest that people don't know enough about what they are voting about, we all know that votes are swayed by the most miniscule things. I deduce this from the fact that a significant percentage of voters are undecided quite close to the actual time of voting.

In the Danish referenda (which you are using as an example), the "yes" campaign had twice as much money spent on it as the "no" campaign and every major media source supported the "yes" vote. Very little information was made available on the potential negative effects of joining the Euro.

I suspect that had the two campaigns been supported more equally, the vote would have been more like 70 - 80% against joining the Euro, rather than 51%.

The entire deal was rigged so that the "yes" vote was as large as possible, so I feel justified in dismissing the fact that they came so close to having a majority as being nothing more than an artifact of the campaigning system.

> When the race gets so close that we are counting thousands of votes (0.1% of Denmark's total legal votes equals approx. 2500 heads - also, there was a certain presidential election), the result being actually determined by these few votes, I think it would be fair to either declare a draw (yeah, sure I'm dreaming!), introduce multiple stages of voting, a revote or something. I'm just not convinced that such a result forms a satisfactory basis for politicians to represent their people from. Imagine it from their side: It can't be very satisfying from an idealistic point of view to represent an opinion which half the population is against. From a more, erm, pragmatic view, you could actually argue that the result is a carte blanche (depending on the subject of the referendum).

I would suggest that in such a close vote, the mos sensible thing would be to maintain the status quo. I can certainly agree that that a majority of, say, less than 60% can be dismissed as statistically insignificant, and that in such instances, the vote should be re-cast. However, actively acting against the majority wish (such as Denmark joining the Euro) is against the very idea of democracy.

> Just as important (if not more) is that it doesn't seem fair toward the almost-majority whom the result will actually go against. Note that this is worse when the vote is "Aye" vs. "Nay" instead of multiple choice ("pick one of the following candidates"), since you don't have to be opposed to one candidate just because you vote for another. Note also the difference between
an "almost-majority" and a "significant minority".

I still fail to see why it more unfair to ignore the 49% of people who want to join the Euro than it is to ignore the 51% who are strongly opposed to it.

> My point is that a significant minority is just that - a minority - whereas the almost-majority could just as well have won, given a few circumstances possibly unrelated to the subject of the referendum. The most well-established is the effect of the weather on who stays home (I trust other Rinkies to know more specifically about this than I do).

Of course this is true. The Danish government had no direct control of the weather, but I'm sure that they would have arranged the vote to take place at a time of year when the weather would be most likely to favour the "yes" campaign.

As I have said before, what amazes me about this referendum, is that despite all the stops being pulled out to favour the "yes" campaign, the majority (admittedly a small majority) still voted against joining the Euro. I think given the difficulty of them doing that, their wishes should be respected.

> I guess all I want to say is that I'm uncomfortable with the state of affairs and that we should try to think of better ways to do things.

Britain will be having a referendum on the same subject soon. Tony Blair wants us to join the Euro. What Blair wants, he gets. Despite the fact that 90% of the population say that they are strongly against joining the Euro, I will be impressed if the vote is more than 55% against.

I think that democracies should not try and tell their electorate what to think. That's where the reform needs to begin.

> jul"phew!"ian

winter"I will be voting against"mute