It is obvious that there are significant problems, but it is equally obvious that if democracy means anything, independence has been rejected as a solution by Quebec. For the past 15 years, as a psephologist at The Institute of Election Analysis in New Jersey, I have been doing non-partisan analyses of election results, mostly in the United States, but also of elections around the world. Elementary mathematical information theory says that no election can be understood by itself. The real meanings of elections can only be understood in relation to the events that surround them and other elections. Elections are a tool through which voters try to communicate.
All communication is theme and variation.
So, clearly, Quebec has voted twice within the last 16 years to remain part of Canada. I would guess that this is the highest turnout in any provincial or national election in Canadian history. Furthermore, I will predict that a hundred years from now, the 1995 Quebec Secession Referendum will still be the highest turnout election. In the United States, presidential elections have the highest turnout of any election. All the more remarkable is the fact that issues invariably generate a lower turnout than contests for candidates.