Mr Reed is standing with the aim of reducing the number of deputies from 38 to 37.
‘If elected, we will save the island £200,000 over four years by leaving a single vacant seat, which is, rounding up, £1 per islander per year,’ he wrote in his recently-released manifesto.
If he is elected he promises to refuse the salary, not take up his seat and not take the oath of office.
Mr Reed accepted that his campaign did run the risk of being misconstrued.
‘But the spirit of this campaign is really an attempt to re-imagine the ways in which we can engage in the democratic process,’ he said.
‘The response has really been quite positive so far though, for which I am quite grateful, but the sample size is still very small.
‘I hope that if this gains wider attention, this can be seen as a genuine attempt to try and do something good for Guernsey even if I may have erred at times in developing this.’
Should he be elected and leave a vacant seat in the Assembly, he is confident that this would not trigger a by-election.
There is a good chance that the States will change the rules surrounding by-elections by calling one only if there are two or more vacancies.
Although this change has not yet been made, Mr Reed did not think it would make any difference.
‘The proposed amendment to set those new provisions into law only narrowly failed recently at the final hurdle, even though it had previously been agreed. A single vacant seat under island-wide voting doesn’t create a democratic deficit and there are the fiscal issues of running a by-election and so I expect the next Assembly to follow through with those amendments.’
But if he is elected and it was decided to call a by-election, he said he would be compelled to defend his seat to honour the trust placed in him by voters.
‘That scenario would be unlikely. One hopes reason would prevail.’
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