This discussion should not ignore that people weren't forced to vote, and
a considerable amount, 28%, didn't. If somebody really has the feeling
that they "don't know and don't care", they wouldn't vote. I'm not saying
that those who voted all were properly informed. Certainly not (but
actually one of the basic things about this referendum was that
reliable information on "what will happen" was not available, so
"information" can only reach so far).
But I wouldn't agree with this idea and underlying assumption of such
analyses that many people basically voted at
random. They voted for reasons (even though these reasons may be very
different from "responsible individual decision making").
Christian Hennig
On Sun, 26 Jun 2016, John Whittington wrote:
> At 12:20 26/06/2016 +0100, Paul Spicker wrote:
>> There was a common tendency in political science in the 1960s and 70s to
>> view binary political choices, and two party systems, as treating in
>> reality with shades of opinion and a spread of views, which then get forced
>> into a binary expression. The nearest conventional technique for
>> representing that numerically is the Likert Scale - strongly disagree,
>> disagree, neither, agree, strongly agree etc. - and it's not uncommon for
>> pollsters to eliminate the middle of that, because it's not an option in a
>> vote. You're right on the specific point, but it's a plausible
>> representation.
>
> Fair enough. I now understand what you were saying but, as you say, it
> doesn't really alter my point ....
>
> If one looks at the 'shades of opinion' on, say, a Likert scale, the great
> majority of those who "haven't a clue or don't care" will be at the middle of
> that scale and therefore do not contribute to the overall deviation from that
> central ('neutral') point. I would therefore say that it's just a statement
> of the obvious to note that, in such a situation, the outcome
> (overall/average deviation from that neutral point) will be dictated solely
> by the (possibly tiny) majority whose views were closer to the extreme ends
> of the scale.
>
> In the referendum, this phenomenon would presumably have been apparent had
> there been a third "don't know" (or "can't decide", or whatever) option on
> the ballot sheet.
>
> I suspect that such a phenomenon is common in referenda, and it's hard to
> know what can be done about it. One could argue that it is inappropriate to
> conduct a referendum if it is apparent that a high proportion of voters will
> effectively be in a "don't know" category, since that means that a decision
> will be made on the basis of the opinions of a tiny minority of the
> electorate - but the only apparent alternative is to forget about referenda
> in such situations and rely on elected representatives (i.e. parliament) to
> "know what is best"!
>
> Kind Regards,
>
>
> John
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
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Christian Hennig
University College London, Department of Statistical Science
Gower St., London WC1E 6BT, phone +44 207 679 1698
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