the.com/plebiscite

means A direct vote by the entire electorate on a single political question, like a new constitution or a territory's status.

from From Latin plebiscitum, fusing plebs (the common people, as opposed to the patrician elite) with scitum (a decree, from sciscere, 'to vote or resolve'). In ancient Rome it originally meant a law passed by the plebeians' own assembly, without the Senate's say-so — a workaround for the lower classes to legislate directly. The modern sense, a nation-wide yes-or-no vote, borrows that populist root but often inverts its spirit: what was once a tool for the people to bypass the powerful became a tool the powerful use to ratify themselves.