>>With a 6 to 1 majority voting yes for the change, it does seem a little >>odd that we were looking for a greater than 50% of all possible voters. > > That's not different from how other referenda are decided. > > The best way to do it is to require a certain percentage of the electorate > to vote for or against a particular item.
I disagree. A fundamental concept in the democratic process is the "vote" which allows the member of a given body or organization to express their opinion upon some governing subset. That subset ( elected officials : OGB/Congress/Political Party ) may then choose to ignore the "vote" if it is deemed to be unclear or not representative of the entire population. One thing is clear, no country or organization in any *democratic* election will go out and count the registered voters ( N ) and then claim a "vote" to be valid when less than 1% of N casts a ballot. Let's look at an absurd case. The Government of The United States of America could hold an election and determine a new president with the votes of only ten people if only those ten were seen to cast a valid ballot. Is that reasonable? Hardly. What if 45% of N casts a ballot? Do we then have a reasonable representation of the population? If some number less than 50%, but near to 50%, casts a ballot and those ballots indicate a directive choice then we must allow the governing body ( the OGB in this case ) to accept the will of those ballots as being reasonable directives for the entire population. Speaking clearly here, I think the vote we have in hand now indicates a choice. It is now the task of the newly elected OGB to either call for a new vote with clearly expressed terms and decision logic, OR simply accept the directive already expressed by nearly 50% of the voting population. Dennis Clarke
