Scotland: Yeah, Nah

If the No vote wins, will this be the headline in the ODT tomorrow?

I was discussing this last night and came up with a brilliant idea - give Scotland their independence, and then invade them a week later.  Lols all round.

Really hope 'No' wins.

If Scotland votes "Yes", how does that affect Scottish visitors to new Zealand? Will they require a visa??

Independent Scotland could be exactly the same, warn experts

From the Independent's website:

David Millward, US Correspondent reports

The knife edge vote seems to be getting a bit much for CNN or at least its graphics department. Viewers have been told that 52 per cent of voters will vote no and 58 per cent will vote yes. Clearly both sides are giving 110 per cent in the last few hours of voting.

Giggle... from the BBC live feed:

Business and economy editor, Scotland

Posted at 01:43

So it's a special congratulations to the 7 people in Clackmannanshire who voted both 'yes' and 'no'.

Looks like the NO vote is going to win.

But not in Glasgow or Dundee.

Obviously the rest of Scotland were smarter.

condescending much?

Ha ha, I doubt Buffon would know what that meant.

I rest my case.

Wasn't even that close in the end. 10 points is a pretty signifciant win in a race that deemed so close a week ago.

Being Scottish, i am surprised it wasn't a tight vote.

Being British, I am not surprised.....

Generally in a referendum like this undecideds go to the stats quo in the voting booth.

your making that up

No. Status quo bias is an actual thing. Voting yes in such a referendum seems a lot more final than voting No. There may be future independence referendums. If Scotland voted yes then the decision would be made and most probably never revisited. Undecided voters therefore may vote "No" as more of a delaying tactic - they feel they can always come back and vote yes later. Humans have been shown to not like having their options reduced. This is why playing hard to get in relationships works. If someone feels they can have you whenever they want then why would they have you now? They would rather try with someone else so they have as many options as possible. Voting yes gives no future options; voting no gives the option to vote yes in 20 years.

If you look at polls for the last week or so a lot of them were saying 45% Yes, 50% No and 5% undecided. The last poll which gave the No vote a greater than 10% winning margin was published on 15 August. All subsequent polls predicted a closer final margin. They were wrong not because of any failure of methodology but because those who are undecided going into the polling booth are more likely to vote No. 

The same effect was seen in the 1995 Quebec Referendum when all polls in the last week predicted an independence vote but they rejected it by a slender margin.

your logic isn't welcome here Ryan