The work starts today to introduce island wide voting

Friday 12 October 2018

No time will be wasted during the mission to introduce island wide voting in time for the 2020 election, with the first meeting on the matter taking place this afternoon.

Guernsey's States Assembly and Constitution Committee is due to meet later today and Deputy Peter Roffey said the results of the referendum will be discussed, with less than two years to go before the new system has to be put into practice.

No one actually knows yet how island wide voting will work, or how it will be managed, but the President of SACC said there are a few ideas around already.

"We need to look at the details," Deputy Roffey said, "the States have promised to implement the winning option, so we will look at ways of doing that, but we've got to be practical."

Pictured: Deputy Peter Roffey.

He said the current legislation will effectively have to be ripped up and rewritten but that in itself shouldn't take too long, even though there have been well documented delays in introducing new laws, which have in the past been blamed on a backlog of work at the Law Officers department.

"We need new legislation. The current legislation won't work, we'll be electing 38 deputies on an island wide basis, rather than 38 in seven districts. We'll have to get it through the States and through the Privy Council.

"I don't think there'll be any delays there. I'm fairly confident we can do that."

Above: Deputy Carl Meerveld had promised to show us how to vote for 38 candidates in seconds, and he did - with this video posted on the Islanders Association Facebook page during the referendum campaign. 

One of the many things Deputy Roffey and his committee now has to do, as well as writing the policy letter on changing the way we elect our government, is to come up with the practical ways of doing it.

He said there are a number of things to consider including election campaign expense limits, manifestos and hustings as well as the actual way we will physically vote for our chosen 38 candidates.

"There are innovative ways of voting, which would overcome some obvious difficulties. If you have people voting for 38 candidates they could be in the polling booth for up to 20 minutes choosing.

"We could look at postal voting, or a pre polling arrangement - where people can go and vote before the Election Day."

Deputy Roffey said he wasn't sure about the method proposed by Deputy Carl Meerveld (above) which would see each voter given a perforated form which would then be inserted into a template so you could quickly mark the ones you had previously chosen to vote for.

Deputy Roffey said, "if you're going to do that, well it's just easier to do it at home. There are lots of options. It's our job to minimise those options."

Pictured: The States Assembly and Constitution Committee which now has to work out how to introduce island wide voting. 

When Deputy Roffey said it's their job to minimise those options, he meant the States Assembly and Constitution Committee which is responsible for things like the machinery of our government.

He and his committee have a meeting scheduled for this afternoon and he said the work starts then.

"We need to kick start the process!"

While it's not yet clear how any part of island wide voting will work, Deputy Roffey is keen for the Douzaines to remain involved if they want to be.

"The Douzaines have to be consulted. Hopefully they'll still be involved, but we need to test their appetite to be involved.

"They've always done things like run the polling stations, and the hustings so I hope they'll still be involved."

Pictured top: The timer has started in the challenge to introduce island wide voting ahead of the next scheduled election in 2020.