Bertie Ahern says getting the Nice Treaty passed in a second referendum is his number one political priority. Richard Sinnott has some suggestions on how the debate and voting should proceed and how to get more people to the polling stations
As the new Government turns its attention to a second referendum on the Treaty of Nice, the lessons of the first referendum are worth reviewing, particularly as they relate to the referendum process.
This is so whether one is for or against the treaty, since presumably neither side can regard a process that produced 65 per cent abstention as a satisfactory way of making a decision with such fundamental consequences for Ireland and for Europe.
The first point to be noted is that abstention, in this as in any other electoral contest, is of two kinds - circumstantial and voluntary - and each kind requires a different corrective response.
Circumstantial abstention is rooted in reasons of the form: "I would have voted but I was away from home", or "I was too busy" etc.
More than one-third of the abstention in the Nice referendum appears to have been of this sort. While circumstantial abstention at some level is unavoidable, it can be reduced by facilitating people's participation in the electoral process.
Probably the single most effective way of doing this is to change the arrangements regarding the day of voting - not just from a Thursday to a Friday, as has already been tried, or even to a Saturday, as was tried in the case of a recent by-election - but to a Sunday and a Monday, i.e. to two-day voting.
The reasons for moving to Sunday-plus-Monday voting are quite simple. Voting on a weekday, which is the practice in only four of the member-States of the EU, is known to inhibit turnout. However, research on abstention in European Parliament elections has shown that voting on a Sunday has its own inhibiting effect.*
The obvious solution is to facilitate those for whom a working day is inconvenient by having voting on a Sunday and to facilitate those for whom a Sunday is an obstacle (or is unacceptable on religious grounds) by having it on a Monday as well.
Government sources have indicated that the idea of two-day voting was considered in relation to general elections but ruled out because it was believed that there would be a constitutional barrier to it.
The Constitution says: "Polling at every general election for Dáil Éireann shall as far a practicable take place on the same day throughout the country" (Article 16.4.1). Thus, there is nothing in the Constitution to prevent the government from introducing two-day voting in the case of a referendum.
Such a step would especially facilitate students and young people who are much more likely to be at an address at which they are registered if both Sunday and Monday are included. As they are the generation that will have to live with the consequences of the decision on the second Nice referendum, whichever way it goes, facilitating their participation in the decision-making process should not be lightly dismissed.
Two-day voting would have the added advantage of demonstrating to fellow members of the European Union and to the applicant countries that we are treating this democratic decision with the seriousness it deserves. It would also set a precedent that the Union itself could profitably follow in the case of European Parliament elections.
Referendums and elections, however, are more about commitment than about convenience and more about mobilisation than about facilitation.
Voluntary abstention is rooted in failure to mobilise the electorate. The evidence strongly indicates that most of the fault for the failure to do so in the first Nice referendum lay in a failure to inform, a failure to explain and a failure to generate in the electorate a sense of confidence in its grasp of the issues. This brings us to the heart of the referendum process.
The Referendum Commission has been relieved of the task of presenting the arguments for and against the referendum proposal, but this is merely a negative step. What matters is the structures and processes of debate and campaigning that are put in its place and now, not next September, is the time to consider what these should be.
The first recommendation in this regard is that the referendum should be held as late as possible (say mid-November) and that the campaign should not be curtailed in any way.
This is essential if the public's confidence in its grasp of the issues is to be restored and if the public is not to feel that the decision is being rushed. It is particularly important that the timing should not be dictated by any considerations other than those which relate to the quality of the public's participation in the process.
The second recommendation is that the referendum process should be thought of as involving several successive phases.
In its report on the referendum, the All-Party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution suggested that the referendum process should involve two major phases - that between the publication of the Bill and its passage by the Houses of the Oireachtas and that between the submission of the Bill to the people and the final vote by the people.
The committee urged that ample time should be allocated to each.
In the context of the Nice Treaty, it is arguable that we should go further and create a three-phased debate. The additional (first) phase would consist of a continuation of the work of the National Forum on Europe with its measured and highly informed articulation of the views of all sides and its commitment to take the debate to the people via its mini-forums around the country and via publication of its reports. This phase might take up most of the period from early September to early October.
This would be followed by, or could overlap with, the second phase comprising publication of the referendum Bill and the ensuing Dáil and Seanad debates.
In regard to this phase, the all-party committee recommended that there should be a formal presumption embodied in standing orders that every TD and senator would have sufficient opportunity to make whatever contribution he or she might wish to make to the debate. For this to be possible, the Oireachtas debate would probably need to be spread over a period of three to four weeks.
All of this would prepare the ground for the third phase, i.e. the formal start of electoral campaigning and for the launch of countrywide tours by political leaders, of door-to-door canvassing by party and interest-group activists and of intensive debates and analysis in the media. In this final phase, what will be important is the clarity with which the arguments and the evidence get across to the electorate.
*J. Blondel, R. Sinnott and P. Svensson, People and Parliament in the European Union (Oxford University Press, 1998).
Prof Richard Sinnott is director of the Public Opinion and Political Behaviour research programme at the Institute for the Study of Social Change in University College Dublin.