What does REFERENDUM mean?

Question

keeps coming up in my revision

Answer 1

It means voting on whether to do something or not, rather than who to trust or not trust.  

Referendum = action

General Election = which charlatan to trust with your taxes

Answer 2

What is very important is if that "referendum" obliges the government to  the result of it.I think no.It is different from a plebiscite.

Answer 3

A referendum (plural referendums or referenda), ballot question, or plebiscite (from Latin plebiscita, originally a decree of the Concilium Plebis) is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may be the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. The referendum or plebiscite is a form of direct democracy ideally favoring the majority.

Answer 4

Referendum is a means of democratic voting, it is usually used for the most important things to affect the general public, that's why this Government in the UK won't allow referendums as they will have to bow to the publics needs and not what they think we should have

Answer 5

It's arguably the most direct form of democracy where a 'Yes' - 'No' vote is taken directly by the people on a certain issue. The only real draw back to such a procedure is that sometimes the people voting on the issue aren't politically aware enough to know what they're voting for.

Answer 6

Basically a Yes or No vote for some act of government that they want to know whether the people actually want it to happen.

Examples:

The Scottish Government thinks that we want to be independent from the United Kingdom (as you can tell, I think this would be a tragedy).  So they are pushing for a referendum so the Scottish people can vote Yes or No.

In the Simpsons, you may have seen the episode where all the town vote as to whether they want to deport all illegal immigrants.  That too was a referendum.