Electronic voting for States members – ‘its time has come’

The Greffe has worked closely with the system developers to create something that will see an end to meetings where the best part of hour can be spent taking manual recorded votes if there are a lot of propositions.

It will enable islanders to see the results instantly with the votes being posted to Twitter straight afterwards and it will provide a long-term database of recorded votes.

There are three sections to the system – one is seen by the public, another by the deputies and the third by the clerk of the meeting and the presiding officer.

Before the meeting, the clerk of the meeting can enter all of the items scheduled to be debated including any amendments.

When the meeting starts the clerk is able to confirm those members who are present or absent or using a proxy vote.

Islanders watching at home will see the main item being debated as well as the full list of propositions that will be voted on.

The clerk has the ability to delete propositions that are withdrawn and add in last-minute amendments or that a guillotine option has been called for, which seeks to end debate before everyone who wants to speak has done so.

The system is browser-based so it can be used by members on their States-supplied laptops, or on their own tablets or smartphones.

Once the debate has ended and voting begins, each member will see a pop-up on their screen for the item being voted on and simply has to tap ‘pour’, ‘contre’ or ‘abstain’. As each member votes, the clerk and the presiding officer see their votes come in – but members do not.

It is only once all the votes are in that the presiding officer is presented with the final tally and the option to accept or reject the vote – if a vote is tied, it will be recorded as a loss.

Members and viewers online will immediately see the result, the total number of votes cast, a picture of each member and how they voted, as well as a pie chart showing the division of the vote.

The clerk is then able to tap a button next to the vote to send it straight to Twitter.

Once the meeting is over, the Greffe will have a record of all the votes which anyone will be able to download and enter into a spreadsheet, for instance, to see how a particular member voted during that meeting.

The proposals for the electronic voting system are being brought by the States’ Assembly and Constitution Committee, whose president Carl Meerveld said that it will increase transparency. ‘Under the current voting system, it is impossible to know with certainty how individual deputies voted on all issues and, as has been proven many times after recorded votes have been requested and resulted in decisions being reversed, votes can go to the minority who shouted loudest rather than the majority,’ he said.

‘Its time has come’ he said, after it was first suggested 20 years’ ago. ‘The increased transparency and accountability it introduces, combined with the electronic access for the next generation of electorate, will help bring the Assembly forward from the 19th century to the 21st century in terms of how it operates.'