Listening to the campaign this year I notice something different. A hallmark of nearly every election I've voted in federally or provincially has been candidates (primarily Liberal or Conservative) talking about how soft voters should "strategically vote" for them to keep out of government the party which you might like the least.
I have heard much less of this during this Ontario election, and I attribute this to the referendum.
If the Liberal and Conservative candidates and their party hacks spoke about strategic voting this election, it might just drive more people to vote for MMP. With MMP you have a vote for a person and a vote for a party, and you never have to vote for a person you don't like in order to "keep out of government" a party which you don't like. Every party vote across the province in every riding (safe ridings or not) count equally towards determining the make-up of parliament as far as number of seats for each party. Nobody is forced to strategically vote to manipulate one of the flaws in using First past the Post in a parliamentary democracy (where the forming of governments are based on how well a party did, not how well individual persons did).
Obviously the old party hacks who have been able to translate 40% voter support into 60% of the seats in parliament and 100% of the power don't like a system where every vote in every riding counts equally. Most have chosen not to come out officially against MMP (some have) as when the old party hacks support something like FPTP so strongly, regular voters recognize that it can't possibly be very good for them.
Whether or not average Ontario citizens win the referendum against the misinformation from old-school party hacks, this election will have been improved considerably by the existence of the referendum.
