The good, bad and ugly of IWV

The Scrutiny Management Committee’s review will hopefully produce an answer to that question, but it is not currently clear-cut.

When Guernsey voted in a referendum back in 2018, 52% of voters backed the idea and the following 2020 election – the first to use island-wide voting – saw the highest voter turnout on record.

The ability to vote for all candidates, rather than being restricted to only those in their district, was clearly an attraction. Previous parish elections had sometimes left voters with very little choice, with barely enough candidates standing to fill the seats available in their district.

On the downside, 2020 saw a total of 119 candidates standing for election, meaning an awful lot of manifestos to sift through if voters wanted to make an informed choice.

Losing the parish link has also been cited as a negative, since people who previously consulted their parish deputy with their problems were left unsure who to turn to.

Others have blamed island-wide voting for creating a more inexperienced and divided Assembly than the old system, with candidates chosen for random reasons or due to party affiliations.

Can such issues be ironed out?

It is possible some sort of hybrid system would deliver the best of both worlds, but it’s equally possible it would introduce yet more problems.

Winston Churchill once said: ‘Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.’

Despite its obvious teething problems, perhaps a similar sentiment could be applied to island-wide voting.