{"id":5046,"date":"2020-10-06T12:22:30","date_gmt":"2020-10-06T11:22:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.electoral-reform.org.uk\/?p=5046"},"modified":"2026-03-17T09:44:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T09:44:12","slug":"are-guernsey-about-to-hold-the-strangest-election-in-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/are-guernsey-about-to-hold-the-strangest-election-in-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Guernsey about to hold\u00a0the strangest election in the world?\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On 7 October, voters in Guernsey will head to the polls for what is likely to be the \u2018strangest [election] in the world<\/a>\u2019. For the first time,\u00a0the vote will be held across one\u00a0island-wide\u00a0constituency\u00a0which will see each\u00a038 deputies elected to the States of Deliberation (the Guernsey parliament) with each voter casting up to 38 individual votes on one ballot paper.<\/p>\n

The election will take place using the Multiple Non-Transferable Vote, or Bloc Vote<\/a>, electoral system \u2013 a variant of First Past the Post<\/a>, used in local elections in England and Wales (Scotland and Northern Ireland use the\u00a0much\u00a0fairer\u00a0Single Transferable Vote<\/a>\u00a0system for their local elections), where each voter has the same number of votes as there are seats to be filled.<\/p>\n

The 2018 Referendum<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The\u00a0election comes following a\u00a0referendum in 2018<\/a>, to replace the previous system which saw voters cast their ballots on a district basis that saw the island divided into seven individual constituencies. The poll presented voters with five Multiple Non-Transferable Vote electoral systems from which to choose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/th>\nNumber of electoral districts<\/th>\nNumber of deputies to be elected<\/th>\nFrequency of elections<\/th>\nNumbers of votes per voter<\/th>\nTerm length<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Option A<\/td>\nOne island-wide<\/td>\n38<\/td>\nEvery 4 years<\/td>\n38<\/td>\n4 years<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Option B<\/td>\n7 districts<\/td>\n38<\/td>\nEvery 4 years<\/td>\n5 or 6 depending on population size of each district<\/td>\n4 years<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Option C<\/td>\nOne island-wide and 7 districts<\/td>\n10 (island-wide)\u00a0 28 (seven districts)<\/td>\nTwo elections held every 4 years<\/td>\n10 votes for island-wide deputies; 3, 4 or 5 votes for district deputies<\/td>\n4 years<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Option D<\/td>\n4 districts<\/td>\n38<\/td>\nEvery 4 years<\/td>\n9, 10, 11 votes\u00a0depending on population size of each district<\/td>\n4 years<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Option E<\/td>\nOne island-wide<\/td>\n38 with one third elected at each election<\/td>\nEvery 2 years<\/td>\n12 or 13 votes<\/td>\n6 years<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Source: https:\/\/www.gov.gg\/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=115309&p=0<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The winning proposal was chosen using the\u00a0Alternative Vote<\/a>\u00a0system, with option A\u00a0achieving\u00a052.48 percent<\/a>\u00a0of votes\u00a0in\u00a0the fourth count.<\/p>\n

The 2020 Election<\/strong><\/h2>\n

There are one hundred and eighteen candidates\u00a0standing in Guernsey\u2019s first\u00a0island-wide vote this week (though 119 originally put themselves forward and appear on the ballot paper,\u00a0one candidate had to\u00a0drop out<\/a>\u00a0due to illness).\u00a0Historically, parties have not been a feature of Guernsey politics, with deputies standing as independent candidates. In February 2020,\u00a0the Alliance Party<\/a>, which is contesting the election with 11 candidates, was the\u00a0first to register<\/a>\u00a0as a political party on the island.\u00a0\u00a0 In addition to the 11 Alliance Party candidates,\u00a0the Guernsey Party<\/a>\u00a0has put forward nine, while 21 would-be deputies have joined together in\u00a0the Guernsey Partnership of Independents<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 with candidates free to set their own manifestos and not subject to the party whip.\u00a0Of the 119 candidates on the ballot, 78 are not affiliated to any party.\u00a0Around a third of candidates (24.4%) are current or past deputies, while 81 are\u00a0contesting an election for the first time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/th>\nTotal standing<\/th>\nNew candidates<\/th>\nCurrent deputies<\/th>\nPast deputies<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Not affiliated<\/td>\n78<\/td>\n55<\/td>\n18<\/td>\n5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Alliance Party<\/td>\n11<\/td>\n11<\/td>\n11<\/td>\n–<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Guernsey Partnership of Independents<\/td>\n21<\/td>\n6<\/td>\n–<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Guernsey Party<\/td>\n9<\/td>\n9<\/td>\n–<\/td>\n–<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Total<\/td>\n119<\/td>\n81<\/td>\n29<\/td>\n9<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Source:\u00a0https:\/\/election2020.gg\/<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

On the face of it,\u00a0such a large number of candidates might appear to provide voters with greater choice, but, when combined with a very limited party system, it\u00a0can make it\u00a0difficult for people to make an informed decision.\u00a0This appears to have been recognised\u00a0by the States of Guernsey: in addition to sending a\u00a0booklet<\/a>\u00a0with candidates\u2019 combined manifestos to every address with a registered voter, the States have set up a dedicated, detailed\u00a0voter information website<\/a>. This allows voters to view all candidates standing in the election (including their contact information and detailed personal statement\/manifesto), filter according to affiliation and other criteria, and use a \u2018yes, no, maybe\u2019 feature to save candidate preferences. The website also contains candidates\u2019 answers to questions submitted by the public on issues such as the environment, housing, and social wellbeing.<\/p>\n

Postal voting was also strongly promoted as a way to make it easier for voters to fill out the ballot paper.\u00a0The uptake in postal voting on the island has been remarkable, with\u00a0over 20,000 requests<\/a>, which,\u00a0according to an election observer, is likely to be the\u00a0\u2018highest proportion of postal votes of any vote ever\u2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A lottery election<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Though a candidate information website and postal voting may offer some mitigation, the election is still likely to be a difficult and\u00a0overwhelming<\/a>\u00a0experience for voters, who must wade through 119 candidate statements and\u00a0keep track of whether they have used all\u00a038\u00a0votes (though no more, so as to avoid spoiling their ballot). Indeed, one potential voter\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0the election would be a \u2018big hassle\u2019 and that most voters would not read through all the manifestos.\u00a0 According to Dr Adrian Lee<\/a>, a former politics professor at Plymouth University, \u2018there\u2019s\u00a0no other jurisdiction of this size trying to elect that many people at once using first-past-the-post\u2019 \u2013 both Israel and the Netherlands, for example, have a single nationwide constituency, but use a\u00a0Party List system<\/a>\u00a0(a form of proportional representation) to elect their representatives.<\/p>\n

Dr Alan Renwick of the UCL Constitution Unit\u00a0commented<\/a>\u00a0that election would be a \u2018lottery for who gets voted in\u2019 given that the low number of voters relative to candidates makes it impossible to make meaningful choices.\u00a0 While\u00a0simply\u00a0giving\u00a0voters\u00a0more votes might appear to enhance democratic choice, a single nationwide constituency, combined with a lack of political parties\u00a0and\u00a0an\u00a0unrepresentative electoral system, is unlikely to help generate meaningful engagement among the population.<\/p>\n

A fairer electoral system, such as the Single Transferable Vote, based on smaller, multi-member constituencies and which allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference, would give real power to voters.\u00a0 How successful Guernsey\u2019s new system, and their experiment in mass multiple non-transferable vote remains to be seen.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 7 October, voters in Guernsey will head to the polls for what is likely to be the \u2018strangest [election] in the world\u2019. For the first time,\u00a0the vote will be held across one\u00a0island-wide\u00a0constituency\u00a0which will see each\u00a038 deputies elected to the States of Deliberation (the Guernsey parliament) with each voter casting up to 38 individual votes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":9103,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[5,785],"class_list":["post-5046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-electoral-reform","tag-first-past-the-post","tag-guernsey-","feature-category-around-the-world","feature-category-comment"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}