Political

The problem with turnout thresholds in referendums

Scotland’s The Journal has (again!) quoted me in a piece, this time about the problems with turnout thresholds in referendums – such as the 40% threshold some peers wanted to introduce for the AV referendum.

You can read the article here.

One response to “The problem with turnout thresholds in referendums”

  1. As I’m sure you know, you can solve the “perverse incentives” problem by setting a turnout threshold on the “yes” vote, instead of on the total vote (so require the “yes” vote to be at least 20% of the electorate, and to be more than the “no” vote).

    You can only solve the “cherry-picking” problem by having a standard process for referendums instead of having them individually legislated for. Hmmmm.

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