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Had it been contested on the same basis as the election that accompanied it, Tuesday’s referendum on electoral reform in Prince Edward Island would have passed handily, winning a solid majority of the province’s 27 ridings.

As it was, however, the proposition failed for having the support of only 48.8 per cent of the vote overall — down from 52 per cent of the vote in a 2016 plebiscite, which the provincial government chose to ignore — while the Progressive Conservatives are claiming a mandate to govern the province with 36.5 per cent of the vote.

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But I am burying the lede. The story of the election, with possible reverberations nationwide, was of course the historic breakthrough of the province’s Green party. Though they did not do as well as pre-election polls had suggested, the Greens nevertheless posted their best result in any election, federal or provincial, in Canada’s history, with 30.6 per cent share of the popular vote — nearly twice the 16.8 per cent they obtained in British Columbia in 2017 — and eight seats, as many as they have in all of the country’s other legislatures combined.