In my last post on the upcoming MMP referendum, I highlighted some challenges the ‘yes’ side faces:

1. A threshold of 60% of votes province-wide.

2. At least 50% voting ‘yes’ in each of 60% of ridings.

3. Most voters don’t know what mixed member proportional representation is, and voters who don’t understand a ballot measure generally default to the ‘no’ position.

Canoe.ca has some numbers for us (emphasis mine):

TORONTO - More than six in 10 Ontario residents now know a referendum is being held alongside the Oct. 10 provincial election and the issue is poised to steal the spotlight in the campaign’s final days, Elections Ontario’s top official said Tuesday.

While that’s up dramatically from the just eight per cent who knew about the referendum in June, Chief Electoral Officer John Hollins said there’s still a lack of understanding about what’s at stake.

While 64 per cent know there’s a referendum, only 40 per cent understand a mixed-member proportional electoral system is being proposed, Hollins told The Canadian Press.

The current electoral system is understood by just 54 per cent of the population, said Hollins - who added the numbers reflect research Elections Ontario received two days earlier.

Ian Urquhart for the Toronto Star has numbers, too. 88% don’t understand MMP. Tomorrow morning, Urquhart “will look at why we should be worried about adopting MMP as our electoral system.” The Star is a generally progressive, openly leftist paper, so that should be an interesting column.

What an uphill battle.

The interesting thing - and maybe the vote’s saving grace - is how MMP got to the ballot in the first place. Party leaders did not hammer this out behind closed doors. A Citizens’ Assembly took a crash course on voting systems, evaluated the options and settled on MMP over the current system, STV (which BC narrowly rejected after a similar process in 2005), list PR, and who knows what else. Insider lore: the more people hear about the decision process, the more supportive they become. Understandably. This is about as far from mid-decade redistricing as one gets.

UPDATE: Fair Vote Canada brings us “10 Low Points in Canadian elections.” Fun stuff. Chrétien was not the only Canadian politician to dangle the PR carrot.