"TRUE/LEGAL/non-SCAM" elections are not a referendum about independence, whether you like it or not. They are evidence, evidence that doesn't confirm the very strong claim that "less than 50% of people want independence".
According to the latest such election (2019 spanish general elections), we had [1]:
1.626.001 votes for parties clearly supporting independence (ERC + JxCat + Front Republicà)
1.784.129 votes for parties clearly opposing independence (PSOE + Cs + PP)
678.451 votes for parties that claim other issues are more important (UP + PACMA)
The total numbers for/against independence are not clear and could swing either way. We would need either much more skewed results (to extrapolate from them) or an actual vote on the issue to support the claim that was made here.
Note that I haven't made the opposite claim (more than 50% of people want independence). I just said that in the current situation the way to know would be to hold a vote, and that Spain has always opposed this option.
[1] https://www.abc.es/elecciones/elecciones-generales/resultado...