Norman Wiseman's Fun With Statisitics

I see Norman Wiseman is shilling for the no mmp forces, as usual. He wants to tell the population that people in countries with PR are clamoring to join us in the FPTP universe, so he writes the following:

As groups and parties like Fair Vote Canada, Equal Voice, the NDP and the Greens in Ontario agitate for PR, groups in some countries with PR rally against it. Recently, 800,000 Italians signed a petition demanding a referendum to move Italy away from PR and toward first-past-the-post. Italians voted in favour of such a change in a 1991 referendum, but that effort was finessed.

800,000, eh? That sure sounds like a big number, until you look up Italy's population, which is 58 million. So, about 1.3% of the population wants to get rid of PR. Numbers like that wouldn't even meet the threshold for gaining seats in the Ontario legislature, under the proposed system. It's nice though that cranks and loners have a friend in Norman Wiseman. I just wish he wouldn't pretend that these fine folks represent a mass movement, in order to mislead the voters of Ontario.

Update: A brief word about Prof. Wiseman's last paragraph:

Ontarians, in contrast, cannot complain that the Liberals "stole" their 2003 election victory. Their 46 per cent of the vote represented an undisputed mandate for governmental change. That is why the Ontario referendum is likely to fail.

1) No one is saying the Liberals "stole" the election in 2003. 2)46% of the vote is not a majority and so on its own cannot alone be seen as a mandate for anything. Also, should we interpret 46Z of the vote to be a mandate for 70% of the seats and 100% of the power in Ontario? Mr. Wiseman doesn't answer this because he knows the answer wouldn't pass the laugh test. 3)As for the referendum failing, we shall see.

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