Are you confused? Perhaps it's just me but I couldn't find anything wrong with the sentence being moaned about in this little stocking filler item from the BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/e...re/7620462.stm

I could understand the sentence, but I'm guessing that if the British voters have any similarities to the general American public, they would want something much less wordy and clearer. In my experience, whenever a proposition confuses the American voters, they just automatically vote no out of frustration or sometimes spite. There might have been some truth to this in Ireland as well with the recent no vote on the EU constitution.

Well it is a long question maybe that's the problem - it sounds like a complicated way of saying something that could be said in less than 41 words, perhaps?

You should see some of the Swiss voting questions. "Proposal to stop the revision of X?" - So you want X left as it is you vote 'yes', but people see 'revision of X' and vote 'no'.

I reckon there are times when 10% of voters vote the wrong way to these questions...

Incidentally I made the September 30 vote online for the first time (in Thalwil - ZH).

Reading between the lines it makes sense, of course, not perfect sense but sense enough that the majority of the voting public would be able to understand and not confuse with any other meaning or inference, which could be misunderstood and interpreted as the opposite meaning, giving an erroneous result to the vote and therefore leaving the council with a suboptimal solution…

I can do that, too. I could work for the council!

I can't see anything wrong with this question...?

I think that it is incumbent upon all sane, responsible english speaking people, regardless of whether they speak English as their mother tongue or not to rise to this occasion, take up the challenge or perhaps the infamous simple sword of truth and make attack upon those barbarians of thought who now so foolishly attempt to hack, mutate and shorten this noble sentence, so cautiously constructed with every care given to ensure that the lowliest of creatures, toiling in the factories or fields of our great Nation should without difficulty understand its import and intent and thus so equipped with knowledge sufficient to the needs of the task ahead of him be able to rightfully decide upon the most correct course of action and affix his moniker at the pre-assigned place.

I really don't think that the electorate are that stupid

I am. But I'm not allowed to vote in Switzerland, so that's alright, then...

Sadly, I have had a number of conversations with people who voted, or were about to vote, the wrong way in Switzerland because they didn't understand the question. Democracy applies to the simple as well as the astute and the literate as well as the dyslexic...

In order to avoid that problem, I read the literature provided with every vote. I know that seems like a very time consuming thing to do and it isn't a particularily thrilling way to spend an evening, but at the end, I know what the vote is about so the questions then tend to make more sense.
I had the same problem when I first started voting here but I put that down to language difficulties.

Was that a communal vote? The city and canton of Zurich always ask in the same way:

"Do you want to accept the following submission: Initiative to stop X"
or, if it's a referendum:
"Do you want to accept the following submission: Submission to do X"

It could be worse.

In the old days, it would have been 'Do you wish to reinstate Comrade General Xxxx as President of our Great and Glorious Nation for another term, or do you wish to work in a mosquito-infested swamp, thousands of miles away for a very long time?'