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But of course what distinguishes the one from the other usually has less to do with how the winning party performs (one in five ridings in the past election were won with less than 40 per cent of the vote) than with how the votes of the other 60 or 70 per cent are distributed — that is, whether they are “split” evenly among the other parties or whether one party wins the lion’s share. Hence in every election voters are enjoined in the most strident terms not to “waste” their vote on a party that cannot win — that is, on the party they actually prefer — but are instead told to vote for another party they might dislike, in order to prevent a party they detest from sneaking in.

Declining voter turnout has many causes, but a system in which the results over much of the country are a foregone conclusion, or in which the votes for any but the winning candidate are considered “wasted,” in the sense that they do not contribute to electing anyone — in a typical election, that would apply to more than half of all votes cast — is hardly likely to have people rushing to the polls.

Neither is a system with such built-in incentives for poor political behaviour. Where a party must put together a popular majority to govern, alone or in concert with other parties, its incentives are to reach out beyond its core voters. But where the plurality rules, particularly where, as in this country, turnout is such an important variable, then the game becomes less about broadening the base then firing it up, mostly by instilling fear and loathing of the other parties.