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No doubt Danes have a basic understanding of how this works, and it all turns out OK in the end, but is it seriously any more desirable than FPTP, which can be explained on a cocktail napkin? (The candidate with the most votes wins, the party with the most winning candidates gets to form a government. Once in a while they may have to team up with another party, but it never lasts long.) And is Denmark any better run?

Electoral reform is popular mainly among parties that see it as a way of getting more power, or consolidating what they have. Canada’s Greens and New Democrats think it would garner them more seats, and a bigger voice in government. Liberals think it would let them dominate the majority of future governments, by favouring leftwing groups that could then be given small, unimportant roles in a Liberal-led coalition. When Justin Trudeau declared his devotion to electoral reform, it was because his people reckoned it would be immensely beneficial to Liberal fortunes, and bad for Conservatives, whatever other impact it might have on the country. It wasn’t about you, folks, it was about them.

B.C. Premier John Horgan’s New Democrats got 39.7 per cent of the vote in the last provincial election, more than four points behind the Liberals. His government is propped up by three Green members. If voters were eager for more of such arrangements they would presumably have supported a change to make such coalitions more frequent. They didn’t — for the third time. Quebec only lost two referendums before watching the independence notion fade; voting reformists have held four across Canada and lost them all.

“I think electoral reform is finished,” said deputy premier Carole James. “The public has clearly spoken. As elected officials you always know the public is right.”

Hah! Not always, but maybe this time, if we’re lucky.

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