The case for compulsory voting in a referendum

Until recently I was rather in favour of referenda.  It could at one stroke give an answer to a tricky question by the people of the nation. Or so it seemed.  But two recent referenda have created more questions than answers.

Take the recent Irish one on so called same sex marriage.  An amazing low turnout of 61% voted on an issue of such supposed importance.  Of that 61% turn out about 61% voted yes.  Do the arithmetic and you find that this means only 37% of the voting population actually supported the measure.  So in reality, far from Ireland giving a real universal support to the measure, the truth is 63% of the population didn’t. 

It was similar in Scotland in the independence referendum.  Of the total eligible to vote only 37% voted in favour of Yes.  Obliviously that didn't pass.  But you could still have had a Yes vote with less than 50% of those eligible to vote actually voting Yes.

Now, given the campaign for Yes probably managed to get out 95% of their supporters, it really means you have rather a lot of disaffected people in Ireland.  The failure of both campaigns to win more than 50% of the electors over shows that referenda are by no means a way to change a countries laws or constitution.

Should the question of a Scottish independence referendum come up again, it should be insisted that 50% of the electorate and not just 50% of the votes cast must be reached before the vote will be carried.  That way we can be sure that a vote does exactly what it’s intended to do.  Give a clear answer from the whole country.