Nominations open for island-wide election

More than a hundred are expected to eventually come forward this week as campaigning officially gets under way in Guernsey’s first full island-wide election, which was delayed from June 2020 because of Covid-19.

The election fight has seen three political parties registered – the Alliance Party Guernsey, The Guernsey Party and The Guernsey Partnership of Independents.

The largest potential grouping so far is the GPoI with 20 candidates, while The Guernsey Party has eight.

Of the current 37 States members, around 28 are understood to be intending to stand, 10 of them as party members.

Pure independent candidates will make up the majority of the field, with 14 newcomers having already signalled publicly that they will be putting their names forward and fighting without the benefit of any party machinery.

The nomination period opened at 9am and will close at 4pm on Friday.

There are 31,301 people on the electoral roll, which is 63% of those eligible to sign up.

In the 2016 district-based election, there were 30,361 people on the roll and in 2012 it was 29,745.

A total of 81 candidates stood for the 38 seats last time and there were 78 candidates who stood for the 45 seats in 2012.

The General Election will take place on Wednesday 7 October, but there are opportunities to vote before that.

Islanders can apply for a postal vote until midnight on 25 September – there have already been 14,000 requests.

For anyone voting in person, on Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 October polling station will be open at St Sampson’s High and The Princess Royal Performing Arts Centre for anyone to use.

On Tuesday 6 and Wednesday 7 October, the performing arts centre remains available for all, while parish polling station will be there for residents of the same parish.

All stations will be open from 8am to 8pm.

Voters who have been issued with a postal vote will not be issued with a ballot paper at a polling station, but they can drop off their postal vote form at one.