More fascinating than the results of the Scottish Independence Referendum.

With the final counts of the Scottish Independence Referendum expected within the next few hours, it is only human to anticipate the results with excitement. The U.K. betting houses have been collecting tens of thousands “votes” before the real votes were cast. The developing drama full of uncertainties in the Scottish (and U.K.) destiny is certainly a great attention grabber.

The real fascination, however, resides in the very fact that this referendum is taking place at all. The historic Edinburgh Agreement (Agreement between the United Kingdom Government and the Scottish Government on a referendum on independence for Scotland) signed by David Cameron, Michael Moore, Alex Salmond, and Nicola Sturgeon on 15^th October 2012 is a Nobel Peace Prize material in retrospect. 

The very fact that a sovereign state can take the devolution process to such an extreme so that a part of the union would be allowed to go its own way, in a more or less peaceful manner (one would hope), provided the results of the referendum is a yes, shows how mature the U.K. democracy has become. Such would not be the case in many parts of the world, where similar issues have been raised.

It is also very interesting how the wording of the referendum has been discussed and prepared. The originally proposed question  "Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?" has been found leading, and it has been changed to "Should Scotland be an independent country?" The process of the Electoral Commission comparing various wordings of the referendum question and deciding on the most neutral concise one is a case of applied cognitive science.

Thus, although the results of the votes would be certainly exciting, more interesting and fascinating perhaps is the process leading to the referendum. 

I would like to propose a toast to the people concerned, even before the results come in, for having come all the way to this historic vote.