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Politicians have been advised of huge resource implications of administrating rolling elections every two years as debate looms on investigating and possibly modifying the island’s electoral system.
Deputies Gavin St Pier and Peter Ferbrache are seeking an urgent investigation into rolling elections at next week's States meeting, which could see the election of one third of politicians every two years island-wide considered by the summer.
It’s asked the States Assembly & Constitution Committee (SACC) to look and changing term lengths and election frequency before bringing recommendations back to the Assembly in June.
A key aim is to reduce the number of candidates considered by the electorate at any one time - a key issue found with the island wide system in a recent Scrutiny Committee review. Critics of electing island wide every five years are known to be supportive of this.
But States officials with SACC have now laid the bare the impracticalities of researching, implementing, and executing such a system by the summer.
Pictured: 2020 was the first year Guernsey elected all 38 deputies at once for a five year term island-wide.
The amendment from the deputies states there wouldn’t be a cost in carrying out the investigation, but officials rejected this saying limited staff “can’t do two things at once”.
And with year-long preparations soon to begin for the 2025 election, they said it wouldn’t be practicable to simultaneously gear up for that and to design modifications with current resources.
Elections every two years would mean those responsible for running elections would end up in “a constant election cycle” continuously winding down and winding up such as preparing polling stations, inducting new members, preparing for the next cohort and a repetitive parliamentary wind down period prior to the campaigning period.
They said the move to island wide voting had itself increased costs and complexity, such as centralised counting and the use of bank staff to administrate which cost £250,000 in 2020.
Senior officers with responsibilities across the States will also be tied up for several months “with a slew of recommendations” to implement after the Moneyval assessment in April, another added.
While not staging another referendum to make the changes would be legally possible, it could prove politically challenging, and it was noted the amendment seeks something like Option E which was defeated in the 2018 poll.
There were also concerns of electoral fatigue among the public.
Pictured: Deputies will consider the amendment next week.
SACC was also advised it could be a mistake to implement electoral reforms for 2025 after only one island wide cycle, but it could be possible from 2027.
They said the international democratic norm is to hold elections every four to five years, and it’s also perceived negatively for jurisdictions to make electoral reforms so close to a planned polling date.
Discussions about elections may also be better tied up with wider questions on the number of deputies that should be in government.
Deputy St Pier, who was elected to a vacant position on SACC in December, and who has just become the Committee’s Vice-President, recused himself from discussion on his amendment, but this morning wrote on social media that “rolling elections [are not a] panacea but may help.
“Having read Scrutiny's report, ensuring public’s desire for deputies to have an island wide mandate with a manageable number of votes and candidates are almost irreconcilable objectives.”
Deputy Simon Fairclough, a SACC member who also worked on the Scrutiny review of island wide voting, said “a lot of people who think the system is broken” be it process or people, but accepted the “self-fulfilling prophecy” of perceptions that the current system or current bunch of deputies is to blame.
SACC agreed to be supportive of the spirit of the amendment but to warn States members next week of the resource constraints and impracticality of implementing any changes in the desired timeframe.
Express has contacted those supportive of the amendment for their views.
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