Online and paper manifestos the most popular option for islanders in election

Over the summer, the States’ Assembly & Constitution Committee launched the six-week questionnaire and received more than 1,100 responses.

The committee sought feedback on a few options it had provisionally considered to assist voters and candidates, including:

n producing a ‘combined manifesto booklet’ that incorporates all of the candidate manifestos into one document; and

n the creation of video and audio clips for candidates to broadcast their message; and

n enabling the general public to submit questions to candidates online.

In a report summarising the findings of the questionnaire, it stated that in respect of the States issuing a booklet containing all candidates’ manifestos, there was a fairly even split between respondents wishing to have the booklet electronically or in hard copy delivered to their home automatically.

5% of respondents wished to have a paper copy delivered to their home on request and 6% wanted the option of collecting it from specified locations.

A majority of respondents did not wish to see lengthy manifestos as part of the combined booklet.

43% of respondents wanted the manifesto to be limited to one side of A4 and 35% wanted it to be two sides of A4. 16% of respondents were happy for candidates to submit manifestos of any length and 5% would like to see manifestos of 4 sides of A4.

The States of Guernsey will be creating an Elections 2020 website and feedback showed that:

n 82% of respondents wanted to see individual pages for each candidate with a copy of their full manifesto, photo and contact details.

n Just over half of respondents wanted to see a short video clip of each candidate at around 2-3 minutes in length and for such videos to be able to be shared via social media.

n 71% of respondents wanted there to be a Q&A page on the website to enable the public to ask all candidates questions and for these responses to be published.

A number of further suggestions were put forward in respect of initiatives the States could undertake and these are summarised in the report.

The public also provided useful feedback on meeting candidates, suggesting varying types of hustings that could be held, drop-ins, ‘speed-dating’ type meetings and roadshows.

SACC president Deputy Neil Inder said the committee is currently finalising its next policy letter on the general election and the consultation responses will help inform the committee of what it will propose.

‘These proposals will be presented to the States of Deliberation by the end of 2019.

‘We are grateful to everyone who took the time to complete the questionnaire and give additional feedback.’

In due course, the committee will also publish a guide for prospective candidates and suggested that people considering standing as a deputy in 2020 should look at the WEA Guernsey course at Les Cotils entitled ‘Do you want to be a States Deputy in 2020?’ which begins on Thursday 17 October for six Thursday evening sessions.

n More information on the course can be found on www.wea.org.gg.