Fair voting

Peter’s response contained too many implications that I had said things which I hadn’t and his ‘fact’, as he puts it, rather largely depends on the interpretation on the validity of abstaining. He still gave no indication of what point his original letter was trying to make.

On the other hand I quite liked Ewan Simpson’s style. I agree with Ewan that common sense doesn’t always play a part in voting decisions.

Unfortunately one person’s idea of common sense is another’s idea of stupidity. That is what debate, voting and democracy is all about.

Where it falls down is when a few people in Westminster decide that their idea of common sense is superior to that of 17.4 million voters.

Irrespective of how individuals voted in the Referendum we should all be very worried about the relative ease with which democracy can be destroyed by a handful of people.

I absolutely loved Ewan’s section on psephology. I’ve never heard the word before. I used to call it ‘the wild guess technique’. The only thing that spoiled that section was attributing to me a false definition of how default options work.

Default options do not work that way Ewan.

The State does not try to ascertain how you would have voted.

I didn’t use that technique for my claim. But I did apply something akin to opinion polls in regarding the sample of countries I do know as being pretty much in balance with the rest of the world.

Excluding mandatory voting systems the only exception to our system I know of is the Spanish Law of Horizontal Property (a community law) where the question is framed in the form of a proposal.

Non-voters are deemed to have voted for the proposal (you do have a month to change your mind).

Personally I think that system is seriously flawed as it depends on how the proposal is framed. If that had applied in the Referendum one side or the other would have been allocated all the non-voters votes.

Not a system I would have regarded as being ‘fair’.

Don Micklewright Weaverham