# UK EU In/Out referendum-:Polling day thread.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-eu-in-out-referendum-polling-day-thread/758125>\
**Category:** Politics & Elections\
**Created:** [June 23, 2016, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-eu-in-out-referendum-polling-day-thread/758125 "2016-06-23T08:12:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 149

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**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\
**Post date:** [June 24, 2016, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-eu-in-out-referendum-polling-day-thread/758125/149 "2016-06-24T04:37:20Z")

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> [@coremelt](#):
>
> No at most 52% of the 76% voter turnout voted to leave. Thats a long way from “British people as a whole”.

Agreed. You’d think that Cameron’s government would have set up the vote as requiring a supermajority (i.e. at least 3/5 or 2/3 or even 3/4 of the vote) to effect a change to the status quo, especially for such an important issue.

I’m not as familiar with voting rules in the U.K., but we have precedence for supermajority requirements here in the U.S. for important votes, including the 3/5 supermajority needed in the U.S. Senate to invoke cloture and cut off further debate, the 2/3 supermajority needed in the U.S. Senate to ratify a treaty, the 2/3 supermajority needed in Congress to override a presidential veto, and the 3/4 supermajority of state legislatures needed to ratify an amendment to the Constitution.

It seems odd that Cameron’s government would have allowed itself to be boxed into such a corner, and that the direction of the country could be altered by a simple majority vote, especially with the vote as close as was predicted.

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