Some Islanders might argue that Island Wide Voting (IWV), ‘lost’ the opportunity for the people’s voice to be heard. From two perspectives perhaps: firstly, the lack of proximity to candidates (something of course that has historically been a feature of our electoral system), which meant that many of the IWV candidates were largely unknown to many Islanders; secondly, that a ‘conduit’ into the deliberations of the Assembly was no longer obvious, regardless of where you live. Both of these concerns have merit.
the potential to have more effective debates in a ‘Consensus’ Parliament
Over the years as various ‘Machinery of Government’ initiatives have been adopted, the States has slimmed down (I believe at one stage we might have had 57 individuals involved), to the present day of 38 ‘local’ Deputies and 2 Alderney representatives. It is not that long ago in fact, that we had Douzaine representatives as a permanent feature. One of the concerns with having Parish representatives (and especially in an IWV environment) is the scope for partisan voting. By that I mean that issues which may be of Island interest (let’s think about a new rubbish tip as an example and let’s say it was in St Saviour), well there is clearly a conflict of interest with any St Saviour Parish representative. We could get over that sort of issue to some extent, by recusing any individual who might be directly impacted by any particular States decision.
Another consideration however, would be a block vote scenario when the Parishes decided to work together. That could be mitigated by emphasising that the Douzaine framework would only be used to host elections for their individual Parishes – not to require that a Douzaine representative be the only choice of nominee. It might also be argued that such a block vote would merely mimic what a Party system would deliver anyway – and possibly be more representative of Islanders’ collective views as a consequence. If you took away the Douzaine-centric association from the scenario, then whoever was elected would be no more biased than any other Deputy elected under IWV who will clearly also reside in a Parish.
This latter concept has some benefits. If 10 ‘Parish’ Deputies were to be elected alongside 20 from IWV, it could act as a ‘proving’ ground for individuals who may wish to subsequently stand for IWV in the next election. Which is to say, Islanders at large could assess the effectiveness of such a Deputy and by the same token, the Deputy could determine whether they would wish to become an IWV Deputy, based on their experience. To assist with this, I would require that they participate in the Committee system and be allowed to vote. I have gone further into this here.
Replacing 18 IWV Deputies with 10 Parish Deputies would address the major concerns mentioned above about providing a conduit for the voice of the People to be formalised and in effect establish a hybrid voting system to obtain the best of both approaches. Add these 10 to 20 IWV Deputies and we certainly have a viable Assembly – and the potential to have more effective debates in a ‘Consensus’ Parliament.
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