Behold the power of constructive snark.

At the beginning of the month the minister of democratic institutions, Maryam Monsef, launched an online quiz to consult Canadians on changes to the electoral system.

Monsef’s quiz, at mydemocracy.ca, immediately became the object of widespread criticism — for the questions it left out (on referendums to endorse any electoral reform, for instance); the questions it weirdly insists on (there were so many questions about online voting); and for the questions that seemed phrased in a way that would encourage certain answers.

Here at the Star, we decided to launch our own online quiz that would seek to point out some of these shortcomings by making hilarious satirical use of the same tricks. Our quiz would leave out some questions, weirdly insist on others, and be so obviously stacked that readers would be left shaking their heads and chuckling in appreciation at such wit.

Instead, I got a lot of angry emails from readers who thought I was serious, but just really bad at designing questionnaires. Fortunately many got the joke — and even more fortunately, about 7,000 of you filled out our questionnaire.

The results are as fascinating as they are wildly unscientific. Our sample was self-selecting and built from no known or imagined principle of random selection. It’s likely that some number of respondents simply picked the answer that would be best at messing with our heads, just for kicks.

But then, all of that is true of Monsef’s consultation too.

So, let us take a pinch of salt and go through our results.

What’s most striking is a consistent theme of mistrust toward the Trudeau government as they proceed with this reform. One of our questions was a straight, low-snark affirmation of trust in the Liberals: “I trust Canada’s current government to make the right decisions about how elections are run.” About two-thirds of respondents disagreed, including nearly half who disagreed “strongly.”

Similarly, two-thirds agreed that “No government should be allowed to implement a change in the electoral system if the change would probably increase the governing party’s chances of winning future elections.”

Three-quarters agreed (52 per cent strongly, 23 per cent somewhat) that “I can’t make any sense out of the Trudeau government’s consultations on electoral reform. It seems that they’re making it up as they go along.” Similar numbers agreed that “I am taking the government’s handling of this electoral reform debate as a sign of their ability to handle any complex reform, and it’s time for them to start worrying about that.”

“Whoa,” you’re saying, “Those questions are so loaded.” And we agree. Fortunately we tested whether loaded questions influence results. Our readers are pretty sure they do. When asked whether they agree that “Leading questions usually produce the answer the questioner was hoping to get,” 73 per cent said they “strongly agree,” and another 20 per cent “somewhat” agreed. This is the answer I was hoping to get!

All the questions in Monsef’s survey on online voting made me wonder how strong this leading-question effect is. Will people agree to any idiotic notion a survey puts into their head? Encouragingly, the answer seems to be “no.”

We suggested: “People should have to pay a little bit, say five dollars, to vote, to make sure they’re serious about their choices.” I may be the first person in history to suggest this idea. It’s an awful idea. Fortunately Canadians agree. Four in five strongly disagreed with the suggestion of a pay-to-vote scheme. How about “There should be fewer points of view expressed in Parliament”? Two-thirds strongly disagreed.

Still, the people did show some admirable flexibility. When asked whether party affiliation should be stricken from ballots, so voters are given only candidates’ names, only 19 per cent agreed. But when asked whether political parties should be abolished altogether, the number who agreed rose to 29 per cent.

Since the Liberals are eager to avoid questions about referendums as a means of endorsing any reform, we asked about referendums again and again and again. The first time we asked the question, we adapted the persona of whoever it was who wrote the Liberals’ questionnaire: “Whether individual voters are allowed to vote electronically online from home is a much more important issue, to me, than whether all Canadians get to vote on any new electoral system in a referendum.” A majority, 53 per cent, strongly disagreed, with another 15 per cent disagreeing somewhat.

In a forced choice between “A government that puts the choices on a new electoral system to Canadians in a referendum” and “a government that makes a decision about electoral reform on its own authority,” 76 per cent chose the referendum.

When we asked the question again with extra snark, we got an even better answer: 87 per cent for “One big consultation that gives every Canadian a chance to vote on proposed changes,” versus 13 per cent for “A bunch of little consultations in church basements and on quirky websites.”

Perhaps you are asking: Is it possible to ratchet up the snark until the answers are nearly unanimous? We checked, and the answer is yes! Fully 96 per cent preferred “A government that actually listens to proposals from people who are interested in electoral reform,” compared to only 4 per cent who preferred “A government that keeps asking the same questions in different ways because it doesn’t like the answers.”

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This whole process has turned a bit rocky for the Liberals, and they may be tempted to drop or delay any reform. But it’s not clear such a decision would be cost-free for them. Asked whether they agree that the Liberals’ electoral-reform pledge was “an important promise, and I plan to hold them to it the next time I vote,” a bit more than half agreed, though 22 per cent disagreed strongly.

And when faced with the assertion that “I care very little whether the electoral system changes before the next election,” two-thirds disagreed.

The only way out seems to be to prolong the hassle: In a forced choice between a government that “takes the time to do electoral reform right, even if it takes a few years longer” and one that “hurries to get this whole process done and any changes implemented in time for 2019,” three-quarters preferred the government that takes its time.