Guernsey Elections

Guernsey goes to the polls this week to elect a new set of States deputies. It is interesting how different their system is from ours. I've just been on holiday there, and noted:

a) they only have one kind of member of the States

- as recommended here by Clothier, and still showing no signs of getting there

b) they are elected for a period of four years

- as recommended here by Clothier, recently rejected again by the States

c) they have multi-seat constituencies (larger than some Parish boundaries) to ensure fair distribution of voting population, rather than small parishes with disproportionate seats, and also to ensure that the voters have a wide number of candidates to vote for, rather than only for their own parish, hence making an election more democratic (more chance to vote out candidates).

- as recommended here by Clothier, rejected by the States (who would prefer to tinker with Parish level representation and remove Senators, thus making less chance to vote out candidates)

d) they have elections in mid-April, when the weather (while wet at the moment) is certainly better the the old October/November dates they had (and Jersey still has), so that instead of going out in freezing, wet, dark, blowing winter evenings, the electorate are going out in daylight even in the evening.

e) Another plus from having one kind of candidate, is that no one gets a second chance to slip in by the back door. In Jersey, candidates rejected as Senators often manage to get back into the States as Deputies (because of the smaller constituences), and can then carry on with rejected policies as if nothing had happened.

It comes as a surprise to note that Cecil Clothier did not do the Guernsey changes report!

Rather than get an outsider, the report was carried out by a local Guernsey lawyer, Peter Harwood, and was generally more open to all kinds of possibilities - Clothier presented his recommendations as "all or nothing". Guernsey largely went along with the main thrust of the Harwood report, and although options were available, did not "cherry pick". Jersey, by contrast did despite Clothier's insistence that it would be a disaster to do that!

How did Guernsey get it so right!