Who gets to vote?

[Kasper King]

I have asked severl people who is allowed to vote in the inderpendnce vote. No one seem to know.
Is it open to all people registered to vote in Scotland? If not who gets to vote?
Wee Ecky has not given us his words of wisdom about this subject, which is funny as he has spouted out about every other subject.

[cptdodger]

This is from Wikipedia -

Under the terms of the 2010 Draft Bill, the following people would be entitled to vote in the referendum:[15] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_independence_referendum,_2014#cite_note-ScottishGovernmentReferendumBillConsultationPaper2 5Feb2010-15)


British citizens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_citizen) resident in Scotland;
Commonwealth citizens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_citizen) resident in Scotland;
citizens of other European Union (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union) countries resident in Scotland;
members of the House of Lords (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Lords) resident in Scotland;
Service/Crown personnel serving in the UK or overseas in the armed forces (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Armed_Forces) or with Her Majesty's Government (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_the_United_Kingdom) who are registered to vote in Scotland.

The Scottish Government is proposing to reduce the voting age (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_age) for the referendum from 18 to 16, as it is SNP policy is to reduce the voting age for all elections in Scotland.[15] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_independence_referendum,_2014#cite_note-ScottishGovernmentReferendumBillConsultationPaper2 5Feb2010-15)[29] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_independence_referendum,_2014#cite_note-viewpoint-29)[30] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_independence_referendum,_2014#cite_note-Macdonnell-30) 16 has been the age of legal capacity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_legal_capacity) in Scotland since the Age of Legal Capacity (Scotland) Act 1991 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Legal_Capacity_%28Scotland%29_Act_1991). Following the Edinburgh Agreement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_Agreement_%282012%29) between the Scottish and British governments, it appeared likely that 16 and 17 year olds would be allowed to vote in the referendum[29] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_independence_referendum,_2014#cite_note-viewpoint-29). Legislation to extend the franchise to 16 and 17 year olds was formally lodged by the Scottish Parliament in March 2013.[31] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_independence_referendum,_2014#cite_note-31)
In January 2012, Labour MSP Elaine Murray (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaine_Murray) led a debate arguing that the franchise should be extended to Scots living outside Scotland, including the circa 800,000 Scots living in the other parts of the UK.[32] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_independence_referendum,_2014#cite_note-extended_vote-32) This was opposed by the Scottish Government, who argued that it would greatly increase the complexity of the referendum and cited evidence from the United Nations Human Rights Committee (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Human_Rights_Committee) that a referendum based on criteria other than residence would be queried by other nations.[32] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_independence_referendum,_2014#cite_note-extended_vote-32) In the House of Lords, Baroness Symons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Symons,_Baroness_Symons_of_Vernham_Dean) argued that the rest of the United Kingdom should be allowed to vote on Scottish independence, on the grounds that it would affect the whole country. This argument was rejected by the British government, with Lord Wallace (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Wallace,_Baron_Wallace_of_Tankerness) pointing to the fact that only two of 11 referenda since 1973 had been across all of the United Kingdom.

[Kasper King]

Thanks cptdodger.