Friday 22 May 2009

Superconstituency proposal

http://www.statesassembly.gov.je/documents/propositions/46139-15963-1952009.pdf
            
Privileges and Procedures have come up with a "superconstituency" proposal, which I think is a good idea, and involves removing the Senators, but not the Constables.
 
I think, however, that there is an imbalance in their groupings. This is because they look at residents per deputy in the new units, whereas I would contend that for parity to exist, they should be looking at residents per member in the States, especially as they will be retaining the Constables of each Parish.

 

 

 

Pop'n

Totals

Deps.

Res/Dep

Dep+Con

Res/MP

St Helier 1

14,155

14,155

6

2,359

6

2,359

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

St Helier 2

14,155

14,155

6

2,359

7

2,022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grouville

4,702

 

 

 

 

 

St Clement

8,196

12,898

6

2,150

8

1,612

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

St Saviour

12,491

 

 

 

 

 

St Martin

3,628

16,119

7

2,303

9

1,791

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trinity

2,718

 

 

 

 

 

St John

2,618

 

 

 

 

 

St Mary

1,591

 

 

 

 

 

St Ouen

3,803

 

 

 

 

 

St Lawrence

4,702

15,432

6

2,572

11

1,403

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

St Brelade

10,134

 

 

 

 

 

St Peter

4,293

14,427

6

2,405

8

1,803

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

87,186

87,186

37

14,148

49

10,990

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Average

37

2356

 

 

 

 

Average

49

1779

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Average

 

 

 

4042

 

3140

Std

 

 

 

137

 

331

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


As can be seen from my table, there is a great deal more imbalance in representation when we include the Constables, and when we average the residents per deputy / residents per member of states, it becomes even clearer. The last figure, the Standard Deviation (Std), is a commonplace statistical measure of the spread of a distribution, showing how widely a range varies. If you think of a bell curve, for example, it can be very narrow, with little spread from the average, or very long, with a good deal of spread. Looking at these figures, once we introduce the Constables into the equation, we can see that the spread  increases. If the figures followed a normal distribution, one would expect about 95% of the vote differential to be within 2 standard deviations, i.e. 137x2=274, or 331*2=662.
 
I would therefore argue that the Deputies allocation within the superconstituencies be altered to reduce this disparity, especially for that involving Trinity, St Mary etc while agreeing with the idea and the boundaries given in principle, which is an excellent one.
 

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