Exercise your people power

Wednesday is going to be a historic day for local democracy. Guernsey is going to hold its first-ever referendum to decide how deputies should be elected in future. As the president of the States’ Assembly & Constitution Committee (known as Sacc) I have inherited the task of overseeing that referendum.

So I thought I would use this week’s column to explain why we are holding it and what impact the result could have. These thoughts are very much informed by my role as president of Sacc but, as always with my column, they are my personal comments rather than any sort of official committee line.

While I am about it I will also take the opportunity to correct a few urban myths which seem to be circulating.

Firstly, why hold a referendum? Simply because the last States decided they should put the question of how to elect deputies to the public. I think that was probably because the States themselves had been debating this issue (far too often) for decades without reaching a definitive conclusion. Whatever the reason there is no doubt that we are about to witness a little bit of local history.

What will the referendum decide? Simply how deputies are elected. If the turnout is more than 40% of the people on the electoral roll who are eligible to vote then the States has promised that it WILL implement the winning option.

Even if it is below 40% States members will be guided by the outcome – it will become what is called in official parlance an ‘advisory referendum’ as opposed to a ‘binding referendum’.

The pedants might tell you that whatever the turnout constitutionally the referendum can’t be binding because ‘the States are a sovereign parliament’. That is technically true but, having made a solemn promise to implement the winning choice, if the turnout is above the threshold any breach of that promise would be too shocking to contemplate. It won’t happen.

Will the referendum change Guernsey’s system of government? No, it won’t. It will only decide how candidates are elected to the States. That might be the current electoral system or one of four alternatives, but how the States operate once those deputies have actually been elected is an entirely different question. This referendum is on Guernsey’s electoral system, not on its governmental system.

Will the referendum have ‘failed’ if less than 40% turn out to vote? No. Of course it will be disappointing if there is a low turnout but it will still help guide the States. How much notice they take of it will probably depend on both the turnout and the margin of victory for the winning option.

In theory they can ignore the outcome if less than 40% turn out to vote but it would arguably be a very brave/foolish deputy who did that if there was, say, a 38% turnout and the winning option got two-thirds of the votes in the first round. By contrast if the turnout is 20% and several of the options receive almost equal support then deputies will be more likely to exercise their own judgement and simply vote as they see fit. Of course it will be far better to avoid such dilemmas by the people of Guernsey voting in large numbers and exercising real people power.

If there is a low turnout does that mean the current electoral system will remain? Not necessarily. That is one of those urban myths circulating in some quarters. In those circumstances Sacc will report back to the States with its conclusions from the referendum and it will be the deputies who will take the final decision. The message is clear. If you want change you need to vote for it and if you want the current system to remain then you need to vote for that too. Not voting just hands the decision to deputies.

Will voting for second, third or fourth preferences lower the chances of your first choice winning the referendum? Categorically not. In Guernsey’s general elections voters can face a dilemma. If they really like one candidate but also quite like a few more how many should they vote for? After all, they don’t want to help their fourth choice candidate beat their first choice. In the referendum that conundrum simply doesn’t arise.

Why not? Because your second choice option will simply not be counted unless and until your first choice has already been eliminated. So it can’t help to defeat your favourite option.

If there is only one option that you like at all and regard all the others as equally bad then it makes sense to just vote for your first choice. But if you do have a second or third best choice you can vote for them safe in the knowledge that you are not harming the chances of your favourite option winning. Remember if you only vote for one option and it is eliminated early on then your voting paper is declared ‘spent’ and you are no longer influencing the final outcome. Vote for more and you might help your second favourite beat your most disliked option. That said, how many or few preferences to use is a personal choice for each voter.

So Wednesday is just two days’ away. Sacc, the douzaines, the States and the civil service are poised and ready for a little bit of history to be made. All that is needed now is you. Be a part of it – vote in Guernsey’s first-ever referendum.