Alderney’s Policy & Finance Committee last week announced a community-wide consultation to inform and determine the future of the plebiscite election.
The alternative would be to return to the system where Alderney States members selected the representatives themselves from within their own ranks.
Currently the two Alderney representatives are elected by the public every two years in a system that started as a ‘trial’ 20 years ago.
Alex Snowdon said he could not understand why the change was being considered with the Bailiwick Commission so close at hand.
‘The name of the commissioners has been announced and the terms of reference has been released,’ he said.
‘It would be more beneficial to wait for the outcome or to work with the Bailiwick Commission, which we understand now is costing up to half a million pounds, rather than pre-empt any outcomes.’
Low voter turnout has been one reason given for looking at a change.
Mr Snowdon was elected alongside Edward Hill on a 43% turnout in December 2024, just after there had been a 63% turnout of voters in the general election a few weeks previously.
‘People do come out and vote and you have to remember the weather was absolutely horrific,’ he said.
‘Officials at the time were thinking about cancelling it because the weather was so bad.’
He added that if Alderney States members wanted to change the system it should be put to a proper island-wide vote, rather than based on the results of a survey.
‘In my view, you don’t chip away at democracy.
‘It’s important that the public have their vote and vote for whoever they want with a clear public mandate.’
‘My fear is that it would just become a popularity contest between members of the States of Alderney.
‘How do you actually make sure democracy still continues when you’re picking amongst yourselves?’
One of the first men to be selected through the plebiscite election to represent Alderney in the Guernsey States was Bill Walden who served as Alderney Representative from 2004 to 2010.
He said he was very much in favour of it remaining a public vote.
‘I think would be a very retrograde step to abolish it and to return to reps being chosen by the States of Alderney,’ he said.
‘It’s the last little bit of direct democracy that we’ve got here for our representation in Guernsey.’
He added that the system had originally been introduced at the behest of a Guernsey committee to make Alderney more democratic, as representatives were being chosen by and among politicians.
‘We couldn’t do it as a simple change to the governance because that would have required it going to the Privy Council,’ he said.
‘However, with a fairly small amendment to the law it was decided to do it, if you like, as a trial, although it was always intended that if it was successful that it would remain.’
He added that financial costs of staging the election were not significant enough for that to be a factor in cancelling them.
‘I don’t think it costs a great deal of money to hold.
‘Basically it’s two civil servants who sit in the in the polling station and hand out forms, and the cost of the count in the evening.
‘It’s not a significant amount. Yet it is a significant piece of our democracy, which I think it would be wrong to take away.’