On Friday, the U.K. shocked the world by voting in favor of leaving the European Union in Brexit.
The news was also shocking to a number of people living in the U.K. who apparently did not believe their Brexit vote counted at all (Spoiler alert: Democracy works just the way you think it should). In the end the referendum went to “leave” with 51.9 percent of the vote.
Immediately following the vote people took to social media to express their dismay at the results, share their embarrassment for not realizing what they actually voted for, and to ask for a re-do.
It was also reported that the British were frantically Googling what the E.U. was, hours after voting to leave it.
Now, less than 72 hours after the fist vote, more than 3.5 million people are asking Parliament to let them vote again by signing a petition hosted on the government’s website.
The petition reads, “We the undersigned call upon HM Government to implement a rule that if the remain or leave vote is less than 60 percent based a turnout less than 75 percent there should be another referendum.”
The petition is so popular it temporarily crashed the British Parliament’s site. A spokesperson tells BBC, the site failed thanks to “exceptionally high volumes of simultaneous users on a single petition, significantly higher than on any previous occasion”.
According to the petition… “Government responds to all petitions that get more than 10,000 signatures and Parliament considers all petitions that get more than 100,000 signatures for a debate.”
Could a second vote really happen? Maybe.
As The Washington Post reports, the vote taken last week wasn’t technically legally binding, meaning the British government could decide in the end that leaving the European Union is not in the best interest of the people. However, the Post additionally notes, it’s also kind of insane to retroactively legislate because some people have a voting hangover and didn’t realize what they had done.
Britain has not triggered Article 50, which is the first step in officially leaving the E.U., just yet. So there may in fact still be time for people to educate themselves on the matter, think deeply about their vote and head to the polls to let democracy work (again).
The world will watch on the side-lines over the next coming days and weeks to see what happens next.
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