English translation of "votation populaire" - "popular vote"

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149 months ago

Amanda Haste PhD, DipTrans(IoLET), MCIL, CL asked this question:

Language pair:	French > English
Subject:	Arts / Entertainment
Level of diffculty:	Easy / medium
Word or term in question:	votation populaire
Context:	Swiss vote on whether to adopt the fixed price policy on books.
Keywords:	My question is simply whether this should be translated as 'popular vote' or 'referendum'.

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Complete list of answers and comments

149 months ago

WILHELMINA TWENEBOA-KODUA wrote:

Referendum

My comment:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_referendums,_2012

149 months ago

WILHELMINA TWENEBOA-KODUA wrote:

popular vote

My comment:

My research ascertained that referendums also take place at the level of citizenry, but I think that it's more customary to use "vote" when the term "popular" is present

Comments by other colleagues on this answer:

149 months ago

wrote:

If your text is supposed to sound more formal, I would suggest "PUBLIC referendum" instead.

149 months ago

wrote:

I agree with Barbara. Referendum is generally used when voting on constitutional issues, even though it seems that in Switzerland they use "vote populaire" also for constitutional issues. For something like the pricing of books, however, "popular vote" may be more appropriate. If unsure, it might be possible to phrase the sentence in such a way that avoids the use of either word: for ex. "put (the pricing of books) to the people", "the people are asked to vote on X" - something like this.

149 months ago

WILHELMINA TWENEBOA-KODUA wrote:

Check the link I used as reference. 'Referendum' was used in Switzerland during the adoption a Fixed Book Price Agreement in 2012

The asker rated this answer best