Matthew Shugart reminds readers of tomorrow’s referendum in Ontario on adopting a mixed-member proportional electoral system to replace its existing purely constituency-based plurality system. If nothing else, it’s auspicious since this term I’m indulging my semi-closeted comparativist in my Introduction to Politics course—with the main theme considering representation and voting systems. Now, if only we were on the right chapter of Electoral Systems, although the chapter on plurality systems—where we are now—does talk a bit about electoral reforms: most notably, Labour’s long-promised but never-delivered referendum on electoral reform in Britain, dating back to 1997.

Prof. Shugart reports on the failure of the Ontario ballot measure which would have changed to a mixed electoral system, previously discussed here. As it happens, I ended up weaving a bit of his analysis into my (8 a.m.!) lecture on demands for electoral reform in plurality jurisdictions—the topic of the bulk of Chapter 2 of David Farrell’s Electoral Systems textbook.

In seeming parallel with Prof. Shugart’s thoughts, I note that this month’s PS symposium on electoral reform in the states omits any article-length discussion of alternative electoral systems. Certainly the emphasis on this side of the 49th parallel is on (seemingly) nonpartisan administration and redistricting issues, rather than any perceived unfairness of plurality elections per se.