‘Remember your frustration before island-wide voting’

The first day of public hearings held by the Scrutiny Management Committee as part of its review of island-wide voting was dominated by criticism of the 2020 election, when all 38 deputies were elected island wide for the first time.

But Carl Meerveld, sitting on Scrutiny’s panel, challenged the criticism and referred to weaknesses of district elections which he said had helped drive demand for island-wide voting.

‘There was a lot of frustration that people couldn’t vote for candidates they wanted to, outside of their parish.

‘My mother couldn’t vote for me in St Sampson’s because she lived in the Castel,’ he said.

‘There was a lot of frustration that some deputies were getting elected on 500 votes from what was perceived as a weak group of candidates in one parish or district whereas other strong candidates in other parishes were not getting elected because it was a competitive parish.’

In the referendum, held in 2018, Deputy Meerveld spearheaded ‘option A’, which defeated four other electoral systems on a turnout of 45%. The States had set a turnout threshold of 40% for the result to be binding.

He told the hearing that island-wide voting prevented deputies being ‘focused on two square miles over the best interests of the whole island’.

He also countered claims that the new electoral system discouraged people from contacting their local deputies and suggested that in the future island-wide deputies, once elected, could still volunteer to represent a particular parish.

Former deputy Peter Gillson, who took a proposal for island-wide voting to the States in 2016, told the hearing that he did not think the outcome of the 2020 election would have been significantly different if held in districts, although he felt the quality of deputies had generally declined in recent years.

He accepted that some voters had found it challenging to choose between 119 candidates.

‘The obvious big disadvantage is the number of candidates,’ said Mr Gillson. He predicted there would be fewer candidates at the next general election in 2025.

‘The main advantage is greater democracy because people can vote for candidates outside their parish, which is great.

‘There is also a more subtle advantage – you are less likely to suffer the parochial wrath if you make a decision which the parish does not like.

‘A big weakness with the district or parochial systems was that some people were virtually guaranteed to retain their seats, making it difficult for new people to come in.’

Women in Public Life founder Shelaine Green called for more to be done to attract election candidates from a more diverse range of backgrounds.

‘[In 2020] things contracted – fewer women, fewer older people, fewer younger people, and an increased number of men aged in their 50s or 60s,’ said Ms Green.

‘You can’t necessarily attribute that to island-wide voting but what you can do is respond to what the election observers said when they saw that result, which was that there should be more government encouragement of a wider variety of people to join the pool of candidates.’

Alistair Doherty, a former senior official of the House of Commons who advises Scrutiny, said he had expected island-wide voting to lead to three changes which it had not: favouring incumbent deputies much more, a higher number of single-issue candidates and political parties.

The public hearings continue at 2pm this afternoon at the Castel Douzaine Room.