Comment by Lerc
2 days ago
In many respects I agree with you there, I almost went with softer language. The fact remains that it appears people were deceived. All of the advocacy pushing the referendum only focused on the first part. To this day I find people who are amazed that it mentioned hard labour and and that they voted for it.
[edit]
I guess think of it in terms of a vote that you had discussed and decided upon before you voted. Could you honestly say that you would read every word of the question or would you just look at the start of it to establish that it was the question under discussion and then trust that the discussion accurately represented what the question on the form would say. The length of the question, was I believe specifically designed to be long to prevent the frequency of its full publication.
Could you honestly say that you would read every word of the question
Yes?? It's not like a school exam where the questions are secret until you see it in the voting booth, and even if it were, you should still read the question carefully. I'm all for things being written as clearly as possible but at some point you have to acknowledge that voters have a responsibility to think about what they're voting for.