The world’s first multi-option referendum, on prohibition, was in New Zealand in 1894; a Century later, they had five-options on their electoral system. Maybe the best was Guam’s 1982 constitutional plebiscite of six options... plus a blank seventh in case anyone(s) wished to (campaign and) vote for a different proposal; all perfectly understandable, the invalid vote was 0.85%. It’s called pluralism.
Indeed, in a pluralist democracy, nothing is “a true binary”. (Yes-no votes aren't as simple as we pretend, 2 January). Well maybe there's one: “which side of the road shall we drive on?” When Sweden put that question to a referendum in 1955, however, the ballot paper had not two but three options — 'left’, ‘right’ and ‘blank’ — so the indifferent democrat could, as it were, go with the flow.
Binary referendums are often too simple. In 2011, Britain's choice of an electoral system did not include PR; it was like offering a vegetarian a binary menu of “beef or lamb?”. In 2014, Scotland voted on ‘independence’ or ‘the status quo’; the winner, ’devo-max’, wasn't even on the ballot paper! And then Brexit, a vote followed by a debate, was upside-down. New Zealand first set up a Royal Commission to chose the options. And that’s the secret of good decision-making: both in referendums and in Parliament, as with the indicative votes, the choice of options (plural) must always be independent of the Executive.
Article originally appeared on After Jean-Charles de Borda, 1733-99 (http://www.deborda.org/).
See website for complete article licensing information.