Voters working hard to engage with election
A SINGLE election by voters from every corner of the island should be a unifying experience.
Instead of seven districts, each with their own electorate, list of candidates, returning officer and set of parochial issues, Guernsey now has one list of would-be deputies for a 31,000-strong group of voters.
Broadly, the electorate is talking about the bigger issues – health, education, climate change; not parish matters such as housing developments.
Yet it still feels like a very fractured event.
Multiple hustings are just one sign of the division. Speed hustings, independent hustings, party hustings. Batches of deputies have banded together and split from the pack to engage with voters.
Apart from one ‘island’ event, a meet-the-candidate gathering, the States has stepped aside and waited for others to fill the vacuum.
Several organisations have obliged with a mix of traditional hustings, where the public get to put their questions, and more private affairs where candidates are invited to meet third party groups and get grilled.
Overall, however, many islanders must wonder how they are supposed to get a grip on this election. They cannot be expected to attend every hustings and the list of candidates is intimidatingly long.
A manifesto publication of Biblical proportions is on the way, along with the answers to a mountain of questions islanders said they wanted answered, but, for the moment, it is a struggle to keep up.
Nowhere is this better illustrated than online. Just as some candidates have their own websites and others do not, some engage through Twitter, Facebook (including private groups) and Instagram – and others do not.
Some are keeping it to email questions, some are doing it the old-fashioned way by door-knocking, delivering manifestos and putting us posters.
Instead of the States making it easy with a central point of information, voters are expected to do their own detective work and track down websites and email addresses.
Many will not bother. Candidates, exhausted from keeping all these plates spinning, are going to have to battle hard to win the attention of even a fraction of the electorate.