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Maybe academics aren’t collectively the sexiest bunch. And it’s true that policy wonks can’t compete with movie or sports stars for the spotlight. Nevertheless, opinion polls consistently show that the public places some trust in professors.

So why are scholars’ studies too often ignored in B.C.’s referendum over proportional representation?

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Researchers are often going through data to compare nations that use some form of proportional representation to those that use versions of the first-past-the-post system, such as B.C. and Canada.

Their systematic analyses of government performances are more convincing than the cherry-picked anecdotes most of us trot out to stoke either fear of or utopian thinking about one electoral system over another.

Scholars have carefully developed many empirical systems, including international indexes, to measure how countries perform in regards to economics, the environment, individual freedoms, taxation, minority rights, gender equality and governance.