Island-wide voting could be scrapped before 2029

The president of the committee which oversees elections in Guernsey has said 2025's election could be the last one held on an island-wide basis.

Deputy Sarah Hansmann Rouxel told BBC Guernsey's political review of the year she wanted to continue the work done by the Scrutiny Management Committee in the last political term.

She said it could mean the States changes its voting system before 2029's general election: "That's a possibility, but, I mean, we'll see."

In 2018, voters at a referendum decided to elect 38 deputies in an island-wide constituency, moving away from the previous parish system.

States Assembly and Constitution Committee (SACC) President Sarah Hansmann Rouxel said: "In the start of the new year SACC will be looking at following on from the work from scrutiny in the last term and the review of island-wide voting and actually starting that piece of work.

"It has to be led by how the community feel about island-wide voting and actually be pragmatic about it."

Jasmine Clement said she would be in favour of keeping the current system.

"In general I would like to keep island-wide voting. It would be weird not to have access for candidates who represent me.

"I also think island-wide voting is a very pure form of democracy as it is, where it is people speaking based on policy."

Martine Ellis voted for island-wide voting at 2018's referendum, but has now changed her mind.

"I didn't think it through enough, and now as a douzenier I really want to see a better connection with the parishes."

At the referendum Rachel Gibert supported option E, which was to have one-third of the 38 Deputies elected island-wide, every two years.

"I thought if we would have done it that way we would have made it easier for the voters, by not having these big booklets through about all the manifestos.

"If we'd have gone with that I'd have been happy, but with the current situation I'm not."

Couple, Barry and Carol Shephard disagreed over whether the voting system should change.

Carol said she liked having deputies who represented the entire island and not just a parish.

While Barry said: "We have ten parishes, and it's good to have local representation alongside a focus on island issues."

In 2023 the Scrutiny Management Committee published a report looking at Guernsey's first island-wide general election in 2020.

It identified as the critical tension at the election, that people valued the ability to vote for any candidate across the island, regardless of parish but many said they found it almost impossible to assess 118 candidates.

A "significant loss of parish identity and local representation" was also highlighted as one of the impacts of the move to island-wide voting in 2020.

Eight recommendations were highlighted in the report, including changing the number of votes available to the electorate, that any future consideration after the 2025 general election, of a further referendum on the electoral system should include "a more equitable system of explaining the options to voters".

Policy and Resources' government work plan proposes that work continues in the first half of this political term on looking into whether an "automated electoral roll" could be created.

Currently the public have to sign up to the electoral roll before each general election, which has been blamed for "low turnout" at recent polls.

The proposed government work plan also includes reviewing the number of deputies and work on Latimer House Principles such as designating Court 3 of Guernsey's Royal Court as the "parliamentary estate".

A review of the rules governing how the States reacts to emergencies (civil contingencies legislation) is slated for the second half of the political term.

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