Despite the remarkable increase in the use of referendums around the world, there is no consensus on the best way to design them (as is the case with ordinary elections).
Various agencies have proposed different protocols regarding the regulation of elections, but few of them refer specifically to popular votes, and those that do deal primarily with regulation and financing rather than design.
Bearing this in mind, here are some of the aspects that anyone interested in adopting (or reforming) direct popular voting through the collection of citizen signatures should consider regarding its design.
Most of the crucial questions about referendum design are deeply normative, in the sense that they lack a technically correct answer.
For example, there is no precise answer to the question, what is the optimal number of signatures that should be required to activate a citizens' initiative referendum?
This is a question related to who will be able to activate a popular vote and any answer will depend on the preferences of the editors.
In addition, there is no single recipe to deal with these controversial issues because "one size does not fit all".
Any decision on these issues must be sensitive to the context (understood in a broad sense, including the party system, socioeconomic factors, etc.).
Consider, for example, voting by mail.
In a context with a high degree of clientelism,
postal voting could be a disaster, just as it would be in a non-clientelistic context but with slow or unreliable postal services.
The context is crucial, diverse and constantly evolving.
The first questions that the organizers of citizen initiative referendums must face are: who writes the question that will be put to a popular vote and how should it be drafted?
By convention, the group that sponsored the original initiative usually writes the question.
However, since it is not only what is asked that is important, but how it is asked, it is recommended that electoral authorities and management bodies help stakeholders to draft intelligible and constitutionally sound questions.
For example, when David Cameron submitted his Brexit question to the British Electoral Commission, as required by law, his proposal read: “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union?”
After bringing together a group of experts, the Commission suggested an alternative:
“Should the UK remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?”
It was argued that the original draft biased the voter, as it explicitly hid the "exit" option.
In addition, there is consensus that the question should be as clear, short and neutral as possible: without surprises and without omissions.
However, the flip side of a very cut and dry question is that, if accepted, the lack of detail could open the door to interpretation by those responsible for the application.
The number of signatures required to launch a citizen initiative referendum is perhaps one of the most determining factors in determining who will be able to use these institutions and, implicitly, in selecting the types of organizations and groups that can support them.
First, just as supermajorities are often required for constitutional change, but not for ordinary laws, so is direct popular vote through citizen signature gathering.
Therefore, the number of signatures should depend on the type of mechanism being considered: popular initiatives for constitutional reform should require more signatories than popular initiatives for ordinary legislation or referendums.
Taking into account all the countries in the world that today use citizen initiative referendums, the average number of signatures needed to launch a popular initiative is equivalent to around 9% of the electorate, a figure one point lower in the case of referendums, although there is considerable variation from place to place.
In the United States, these thresholds are often lower: popular initiatives require the signatures of about 9% of those who voted for state governor in the previous general election (sometimes this figure is based on the number of votes for secretary of State), which represents around 4.5% of the electorate.
Popular initiatives for ordinary legislation and referendums typically require 6.5 and 3.3%, respectively.
For those who want to implement this type of mechanism for the first time, setting the signature threshold at a fixed percentage of the electorate is probably the best option to avoid the aforementioned problems.
Ideally, this figure should be between 5 and 10% for referendums and between 8 and 13% for constitutional initiatives.
Of course, certain problems seem more acute in some contexts than in others.
The initiative process in the United States is especially notable for the problems that have surrounded the regulation of direct Democratic campaign finance, including paying signature collectors and spending on political advertising.
As argued above, these problems can largely be attributed to several controversial decisions of the Supreme Court of Justice, which have erased all limits on spending on these campaigns by private interests.
Those considering adding citizen initiative direct democracy mechanisms to their institutional repertoire should view this example as a cautionary tale rather than one to emulate;
Ideally, the role of money should be minimized as much as possible to prevent the rich side from dominating the debate.
Spending should be tempered by clear disclosure rules, with an explicit prohibition on paying for signatures.
In general terms, the campaign architecture of citizen initiative referendums in terms of organization, duration, civic education, spending and control should be similar to the corresponding norms of ordinary elections.
These campaigns should be under the control of competent electoral authorities acting in the public interest and interested parties should be limited to observer status.
with the explicit prohibition of paying for signatures.
In general terms, the campaign architecture of citizen initiative referendums in terms of organization, duration, civic education, spending and control should be similar to the corresponding norms of ordinary elections.
These campaigns should be under the control of competent electoral authorities acting in the public interest and interested parties should be limited to observer status.
with the explicit prohibition of paying for signatures.
In general terms, the campaign architecture of citizen initiative referendums in terms of organization, duration, civic education, spending and control should be similar to the corresponding norms of ordinary elections.
These campaigns should be under the control of competent electoral authorities acting in the public interest and interested parties should be limited to observer status.
It is important to note that these referendum design decisions should not be taken in isolation as a simple checklist.
Rather, each element is inextricably linked to the others, and all are remarkably contingent on the context in which they occur.
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