Requirements for a referendum to pass

Legal Regime governing Referenda (Law no. 15-A/98 of 3 April 1998, last amended by Organic Law no. 3/2017 of 18 July 2017)

Article 7: Formulation

2 – Questions shall be formulated objectively, clearly and precisely and in such a way as to solicit yes or no answers, without directly or indirectly suggesting which.

Article 100: Contents

2 – On the line that corresponds to the last sentence in each question there shall be two squares, one of which shall be headed by the word “Yes” and the other by the word “No”, in order that the elector may mark the answer he prefers.

Article 251: Effects

1 – Passage of the laws governing the de facto institution of each of the administrative regions shall be subject to the casting of a favourable vote by the majority of the registered electors who pronounce themselves on the questions referred to in Article 249(1).

2 – In the case of an affirmative answer, the referendum shall only have binding effect if the number of voters exceeds half the number of registered electors.

For optional referenda, explicit legal text stating that a simple majority is needed for the referendum to pass could not be found. However, Article 7(2) states that referendum questions can only be answered with a YES or a NO. Article 100(2), which specifies the form of the ballot paper, reinforces this answer. The voter can only choose between YES or NO. It is strongly implied that whichever response that gains more votes is the outcome.