Comment 81010

By Le Chiffre (anonymous) | Posted September 19, 2012 at 09:32:34

"Referendums were an extension for large populations of the practice of direct democracy in the Swiss canton meeting or the New England town meeting of voters, where legislation is still passed, and taxes are levied, directly by the voters. This type of referendum is direct democracy in the sense that the voters are actually passing legislation if they approve the proposition presented to them.

The other meaning of the word, and the one now meant in Canada, is the reference of a question to a popular vote, which is not binding on the government or legislature that referred it. A government or legislature may ignore the result and they have often done so. Thus the non-binding referendum is merely a kind of expensive public opinion poll."

http://www.revparl.ca/21/3/21n3_98e_Rowat.pdf

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