A dangerous day for democracy.

Tomorrow, Catalonia votes for independence. At least that’s the plan.

In recent weeks, the Spanish national government, which considers the referendum illegal, has sent in the Guardia Civil to arrest Catalan government officials and blocked referendum websites.

From its perspective, the vote threatens the national stability embodied in the Spanish constitution.

For his part, Catalonia’s President, Carles Puigdemont, considers the national government response heavy-handed – an over-reaction to a vote he felt compelled to hold given the unwillingness to discuss greater autonomy.

Thousands of national police have been sent to the Catalan capital, Barcelona, to maintain order and to prevent the vote. Images of angry crowds and police in riot gear emerge daily. Matters are escalating and there’s genuine concern about confrontation and violence, and uncertainty about whether the vote will actually go ahead as both sides dig in their heels.

There’s the problem of voting.

It immediately places you in a camp that’s either totally for or totally against something. Rarely are the big questions about our future that simple.

Talking with friends from the Basque Country in the last week – a region that already has substantial autonomy in Spain – they can appreciate Catalonia’s desire for more autonomy and expression of identity. They also don’t believe that all the Catalan people would agree with a hard separation that would see the benefits of the unity created though the Spanish constitution lost without considerable deliberation on the matter.

That perspective is supported by reports of polls that have suggested Catalonians are split 50-50 on the question of independence, even though there’s strong support for an independence vote.

Working through the choices about the degree of autonomy, in what areas and how the burden of change will be shared, will need better tools than the ballot box. Nuanced judgments and trade-offs can’t be resolved by ‘yes-no’ questions that immediately create winners and losers.

In South Australia we’ve been trialling alternatives to voting for the past four years.

We are far from perfecting it but the fact we’ve been willing to experiment has attracted global interest – including from a region that neighbours Catalonia.

In Gipuzkoa, President Markel Olano has initiated a program of engaging all sectors of the community in a discussion about ‘building the future’. The region, still healing itself after years of separatist violence, has been examining alternative democratic approaches that complement the right to vote.

Through Etorkizuna Eraikiz the regional government is bringing together citizens, business and government to collaboratively plan for a peaceful and prosperous future.

Whatever the result of tomorrow’s vote in Catalonia, let’s hope what emerges is more collaboration like that taking in place in Gipuzkoa, rather than more confrontation.

Matt Ryan is a former Deputy Chief of Staff to the South Australian Premier, Jay Weatherill, and co-author of the state’s Reforming Democracy policy. On September 5, 2017 he was a guest speaker at the Summer Courses Foundation in the Spanish and Basque province of Gipuzkoa.