The outcome of the Dutch Ukraine referendum shows how problematic they are: it was a consultive one, so people have felt free to use it as a protest vote. Even the organizers have openly said that they do not care about Ukraine, they have openly highjacked the process to organize a vague protest vote, and in the event just 32% of voters bothered to even vote.
There is a reason that we vote for representatives: our modern world is complicated, there are a lot of competing interests and to create a good policy, an acceptable compromise to deal with issues is hard. It takes time to properly understand things, which most people do not have. In addition, people enthusiastic about a policy will skew the turnout and we can get results that most people do not really want. So we should reform the referendum process to ensure that decisions are made by informed, representative people. This should lead us to the following process:
- for consultations, use sampling: choose hundred people randomly, put them into a hotel for a week, brief them on the issue at hand, and get their concerns and priorities.
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for referendums, treat them as a corrective mechanism against the risk that politicians ignore an issue.
A consultation mechanism provides much more nuance, and chances to figure out which parts of specific legislations are problematic. It might be that a policy is good, but that not enough help had been provided to aid those affected by the change. It might be that the concern is something related, and that we need to address that as well. It is a perfect companion to our democracy, significantly cheaper to implement than a referendum, and would underscore the consultive nature of such a people’s senate.
Making referendums a corrective mechanism would mean that it should have high hurdles to justify overruling the parliament. So I suggest that the acceptance threshold should be 60% of votes cast, and 40% of eligible voters1. This is a high hurdle, but it would ensure that any act passed this way has the broad support of the people, and has enough standing that parliament cannot simply overrule it2. One needs to engage almost the entire population to get one passed, and so it puts pressure on ensuring that proposals are well thought out. Also such a mechanism should allow us to introduce new bills, to increase the chance that it actually addresses the basic concerns. The Swiss allow parliament to add its own version for a referendum, and I believe this has greatly improved the quality of the passed referendums.
- One consequence is that the required turnout is between 40% when everyone votes for it, and 66.7% when 60% do. It also removes the incentive for people to stay away to keep participation below the required threshold. ⏎
- I believe a constitution changing majority should be required for an overrule, or a new referendum. ⏎