Do you think voter turnout would be higher when you have fifty referendums a year than the one every several years you vote for local officials ? Voter turnout would probably be very low most of the time , but when the controversial , problematic questions come along it would rise , because that ' s when a lot of people would possibly be affected in a bad way . And it doesn ' t have to be black or white , it doesn ' t have to be a referendum on every single law , maybe just the ones that are very clearly aimed at a certain segment of the population ? Or ones that directly affect our bodies and our health direct control over our bodies is a human right , direct control over our tax rate is not , for instance , so that could be one basis for it ? To make it feasible referendums would of course have to be digitalised , at least to some extent , like they do it in Switzerland . People can vote from home there , though there should be booths as well of course for those without a computer . If voter turnout is small for an issue below , say , 2 . 5 % or 5 % of the population in a state or whatever the referendum should be ignored , with the result being interpreted as people not having have a large stake in this issue , so the elected officials can do what they like . Edited for spelling and a little formatting .