A commenter from Moon of Alabama directed me to the vote totals in Lebanon's election. It turns out that March 8 won over 54% of the popular vote in Lebanon's recent election (Barack Obama won slightly less than 53% of the popular vote in 2008).
These numbers do not directly impact the process by which the winning March 14 coalition will form a government (winning with about 45% of the vote), but they do point to the severe distortion caused by Lebanon's ethnicity-based electoral system.
Presumably, because Hezbollah's seats were all safe and uncontested, which meant turnout efforts were not directed towards those seats, a one-person one-vote system would have resulted in a bigger win for Hezbollah and its allies.
Lebanon does not do a census because groups that have lost population share since the current ethnic proportion was emplaced in Lebanese politics do not want an official certification of how much the electoral system shifts the national power balance in their favor. But every election there are election results that do just that. In this case the disparity could not be more stark.
Hopefully the US and Israel will not pressure March 14 under these circumstances to confront the popularly larger March 8 coalition in a way that could damage the country. I'm optimistic but slightly concerned because the US has an agenda for Lebanon that goes against the desires of most Lebanese citizens.
