Lowest ever election turnout

Sunday 24 November 2019

The 1.4% turnout for the recent St Peter Port Constable election was the lowest the parish has ever had, according to the Douzaine.

Just 109 votes were cast in the election, which saw Dennis Le Moignan re-elected as one of the Parish's constables.

But Parish officials were exasperated by the extremely low turnout - the lowest St Peter Port has ever had. 

Going forward, they are going to try and come up with new ways to engage voters, a spokesperson said. 

"At the moment we use adverts in the Press, on the radio, Facebook and Twitter, now we are discussing getting a Instagram account as well."

A number of people had commented on social media saying they would have voted if they had known the election was happening, however. The spokesperson said they didn't know why people hadn't seen their adverts: "[We don't understand why] lots of people saw the results on the various media so why not the notice of the polling day."

Either way, they confirmed there were plans to try and drum up more support going forwards.

The Douzaine also confirmed that elections usually cost approximately £1,100 to host, depending on the size of the advert in the Gazette. 

Mr Le Moignan beat Rosie Henderson in the election with 61 votes to her 48. 

Pictured top: The St Peter Port Douzaine Room.