The first requirement of any Initiative and Referendum system is that a minimum number of signatures should be collected from registered voters before a proposal can go to referendum. This ensures that only proposals that have a reasonable chance of being passed go forward. If the signature barrier is too low then all kinds of ridiculous proposals that have no chance of succeeding could be put forward and asking people to turn out to vote on unreasonable or flawed proposals time after time would soon bring the system into disrepute. On the other hand if the barrier is set too high then no proposals would get to referendum and there would be no moderating effect on the Senedd. For Wales we suggest a figure of around 40-50,000 signatures for a proposal to go to referendum. Whatever number we decide on to begin with if it turns out to be wrong the mistake can be corrected by taking proposals for adjusting this figure through the reform process.

There are several ways in which the signature collection process can be abused and these are seen in some states in the USA. One of these is to allow a very short period of time in which to collect signatures. This gives rich organisations wishing to promote a piece of legislation opportunities to use their financial power to pay people to collect signatures and buy lots of television and radio advertising. The remedy for the first problem is to ensure that ordinary citizens have enough time to collect signatures for their proposals. In Switzerland the citizens promoting a campaign have up to a year and a half in which to collect signatures and this removes the advantage that wealthy organisations might have. The second problem, the buying of television and radio advertising could be easily solved in Britain by not allowing referendum campaigns to do this, in the same way we do not allow political parties to buy television or radio advertising.

It is sometimes suggested that the internet could be used to collect the required number of 'signatures' to enable a referendum to go forward. There are several problems with this, one being security but perhaps the biggest problem would be the speed at which signatures could be collected. One of the greatest strengths of a well run referendum campaign is that the process helps create an informed and active public. Those promoting the initiative have to prepare their case carefully in the knowledge that their ideas will be thoroughly tested by the public and the media during the signature collection period. They have to provide the public with detailed and accurate information about their proposals in order to get support. Collecting support over the internet could drastically shorten the signature collection process but at the cost of leaving us less well informed about the decisions we would have to make. There is also the danger of some of our less scrupulous politicians pushing forward ill considered proposals as a knee jerk response to a particular event.

We would suggest that when quick responses to events are needed these decisions can be handled by our elected representatives. We would suggest that the referendum process should be designed to be a longer, more deliberative process where the issues can be considered over a reasonable period of time.

A concern sometimes expressed by those arguing against direct democracy is the 'majority tyranny' argument, the idea that a majority of citizens would abuse their power to force unjust measures on smaller sections of the community. There isn't much sense in this argument. The first point to be made is that the majority of people are inclined to be tolerant and generous towards others, something not usually reflected by the media. The other point is that the system we currently live with is actually a minority tyranny.

Labour pretty much runs Wales. Even though they only get 35% of the vote at elections they get 48% of the seats in the Senedd but beneath this injustice is a greater one. The number of Labour Party members in Wales is around 25,000 and that's in an electorate of around 2,300,000. Labour Party members make up about 1.1% of the electorate. Labour Party members decide Labour Party policy so 1.1% of the electorate runs Wales and the other 98.9% of us have no say in the matter.

At Campaign for Democracy we let you decide who is going to run Wales, the moderate majority or 1.1% of the electorate.