Parish

Shane Langlois, the Chairman of the Douzaine Council thinks that part of the problem is how the elections are structured: "It is a throw back to the 19th century where you call a parish meeting, people turn up, the candidates are introduced, proposed and seconded and if the election isn't contested you don't get a chance to vote... if it is contested then it is high likely that seven people are going to put their hands up for a deferred election."

A point held out by the fact that two of the three contested elections on 4 November 2008 were deferred.

This means a new date (19 November) was decided upon and voters can cast their votes in a secret ballot with the polls open from 0800 - 2000.

So only the 26 islanders who turned out in St Sampson's exercised their right to vote.

"So the chance of you being able to turn up to a meeting and exercise a vote are very slim which is not a huge incentive to go out on a November evening," admitted Mr Langlois.

The States have looked at the system in the past and moved all the elections to the same evening but "they didn't look into what was basically a system based around the 19th Century when maybe 50 people in the parish would be able to vote or stand as douzenier".

Mr Langlois said, "It hasn't adapted at all to what we would call a modern democratic system where you expect everyone in the parish at least the opportunity of going to a polling station and casting their vote."

Asked about the perceived lack of publicity he replied, "I would have thought a double page spread in the La Gazette Officielle would have at least caught people's eye."

On the apathy of voters Langlois said, "Once upon a time the douzaine representative was the voice of the people in the States of Guernsey. Casting your vote for douzenier was the only way to have some influence on what the States of Guernsey was doing as the rest of it consisted of rectors and Jurats.

"In the last hundred years it has changed dramatically and for the good I think with the directly elected deputies a very healthy development."

He thinks something does need to be done to address the problems of apathy suggesting that the relationship between parishes and the States needs to be redefined as "it is very open ended and needs to be sorted".

He added that "there are ways of making the parishes and douzaine more relevant to people's lives and engage with the parishioners as a whole" and these need to be investigated.