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Hence the gathering Conservative campaign demanding a referendum on any proposed reform. It’s couched in terms of democratic principle: Liberals have no mandate, Conservatives argue, to implement such a fundamental change in the country’s electoral architecture.

But what is advanced in the name of the public interest often has a way of also being in the private interest of whoever is proposing it. Liberals may be fairly accused of preferring the ranked ballot model because it is most likely to deliver them into power. But Conservatives could equally be accused of self-interest in their defence of the status quo.

As, for that matter, could the NDP: its preferred alternative, proportional representation, just happens to be the system most congenial to a small, ideologically based party. Indeed, if one thing can be predicted with some certainty about the coming debate, it is that all of the combatants will be guided strictly by self-interest, whatever pious sentiments may come out of their mouths.

Or at any rate, perceived self-interest. It’s not clear to me that the Conservatives would be doomed under a ranked or proportional system, and it’s even less clear why they should want to say so. Essentially they are acknowledging “the only way we can win is under a system that fundamentally distorts voter choices, wherein a party with 40 per cent of the vote or less may claim to represent the majority.”

But just because the Conservatives are unable to attract many second choices now does not mean they can never do so in future. Under a different leader, with a different message, who’s to say? The thing about “fundamental change” is it’s fundamentally unpredictable — any prediction that simply transposes existing voting patterns onto a new system is almost certainly wrong. The point cannot be made often enough: change the voting system, and everything changes. Party strategies would evolve, as would the calculus facing voters.