Under ordinary circumstances I usually always vote, even if it's in a pseudo-random way by the flip of a coin or some other arbiter. The 2010 general election was my most systematic voting attempt to date, via data mining manifestos, but since the victors promptly dumped most of their manifesto pledges shortly after arrival in office the whole exercise turned out to be one of utter futility anyway.
Referenda in the UK are a really unusual phenomena, and there havn't been any within my adult lifetime. In this case it's over a proposed change to voting procedure - essentially the algorithm used to count votes. The choice is between a simple majority, which in computation terms would be known as a winner takes all (WTA) algorithm, or an "alternative vote" (AV) system which is more akin to a weighted sum or probabilistic method based on ranking of candidates by order of preference.
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No matter which algorithm is selected they both follow a democratic principle. I've also voted under both systems in the past, so it really isn't any big issue. Elections of Euro MPs uses something similar to, or the same as, the proposed AV algorithm. So in this case no matter which is selected that's ok with me, provided that the algorithm is consistently applied, and I'll therefore abstain from voting as an indicator of no preference.
There seems to be a lot of political-type stuff going on in the UK at the moment, which is mostly connected to the current situation of stagflation and the fallout from decisions over public service and education cuts, so there are many things which people want to change or preserve. In this context offering a referendum on an issue which very few people care about seems rather perverse.
For more ranting on this topic, and photos of some of the referendum campaign leaflets, see here.
Referenda in the UK are a really unusual phenomena, and there havn't been any within my adult lifetime. In this case it's over a proposed change to voting procedure - essentially the algorithm used to count votes. The choice is between a simple majority, which in computation terms would be known as a winner takes all (WTA) algorithm, or an "alternative vote" (AV) system which is more akin to a weighted sum or probabilistic method based on ranking of candidates by order of preference.
No matter which algorithm is selected they both follow a democratic principle. I've also voted under both systems in the past, so it really isn't any big issue. Elections of Euro MPs uses something similar to, or the same as, the proposed AV algorithm. So in this case no matter which is selected that's ok with me, provided that the algorithm is consistently applied, and I'll therefore abstain from voting as an indicator of no preference.
There seems to be a lot of political-type stuff going on in the UK at the moment, which is mostly connected to the current situation of stagflation and the fallout from decisions over public service and education cuts, so there are many things which people want to change or preserve. In this context offering a referendum on an issue which very few people care about seems rather perverse.
For more ranting on this topic, and photos of some of the referendum campaign leaflets, see here.