Closed petition Introduce the Island-wide mandate for all States politicians by 2026
Why should people in the town get to elect 4 Deputies, whilst some country parishes can only elect 3 ? If you want to support a political party, but they don’t put up any candidates in your district, do you not vote? If elected by a District your mandate is from a minority of Islanders.
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What do you do if you want to represent the whole Island? Only one District will elect the Chief Minister. If a policy is great for the Island but detrimental to the Chief Minister’s district, where will loyalties lie – to the Island or to their electorate? Devolve more Parish responsibilities to the Parish under the Constable, extinguish all districts. Election Day is 22 June 2022. With this petition, let's see if the All-Island Mandate can get more votes than any other candidate.
This petition is closed All petitions run for 6 months
1,438 signatures
5,000
Ministers responded
This response was given on 13 April 2022
This will be a matter for the next Privileges and Procedures Committee (PPC) and States Assembly to consider.
However, the current PPC put forward proposals to abolish the Island-wide electoral contest, leaving two categories of States Member as a direct response to the Election Observation Mission to Jersey undertaken by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in 2018. The Mission found:
• an electoral system which remains overly complicated and cumbersome
• constituency boundaries not drawn in line with international standards
• areas of concern including the number of uncontested elections
• disparity in the equality of the vote across districts and parishes
• low voter turnout
In December 2020, the Assembly adopted P.139/2020 ‘Composition and Election of the States: proposed changes’ which established an Assembly of 49 Members, 37 elected from 9 new districts of comparable population size plus the 12 Parish Connétables. This effectively enacted Option ‘B’ from the 2013 referendum except with 9 constituencies not 6.
The legislation to enact these proposals was contained in P.17/2021 which brought into force the Elections (Miscellaneous Amendments) (Jersey) Law 2021. The Law has amended the constitution of the States Assembly by removing Senators and increasing the number of Deputies, which will take effect on 22nd June 2022.
There would be ample time for the new PPC to consider the impact of the new system and decide how (if at all) to change the system for 2026 after the forthcoming election. As part of the new PPC’s deliberations, it will consider the outcome of the Election Observation Mission 2022 as well as a report by the Jersey Electoral Authority on the administration of the election.