How should politicians be elected?

Tuesday 11 October 2016

A Jersey States member wants to change the way politicians are elected.

But the committee that deals with these matters says if his plans are fast-tracked in time for the next round of voting in 2018 they risk “undermining the legitimacy of the Island’s political system”.

Deputy Montfort Tadier is a long-standing critic of the current so-called 'first past the post' method. Under the system the person with the most votes gets elected. He claims this is sometimes unfair and undemocratic.

Instead he wants to see the Island introduce STV – a single transferable vote system – and AV – alternative vote. It’s a view backed by election expert Dr Alan Renwick. The States recently asked him to look into the matter. In his report he says: “There can be no justification for maintaining multi-member plurality (first past the post) in Jersey in preference to STV… all the plausible criteria point the same way: STV performs better on all criteria.”

Deputy Tadier acknowledges both the systems he’s proposing can be complicated, but claims the public would be able to understand them. He argues that’s more important than knowing about the maths of how the final result is calculated. It a view backed by Dr Renwick: “ordinary voters do not need to understand the complexity in order to understand how to exercise their vote and why the election result is as it is.”

Under the new proposed systems voters rank their favoured candidates.

Deputy Tadier was narrowly defeated last time he brought a similar proposal to the States in 2013.

Although the Privileges and Procedures Committee says it’s not taken a view on the merits or otherwise of changing the electoral system it does think it would impractical to introduce the changes in time for 2018’s General Election. It also feels voting reform should be discussed as part of wider States reforms – these include Dr Renwick’s opinion that Senators and Deputies should be replaced with a single class of member in districts of three to five seats.

In its amendment to Deputy Tadier’s proposal Privileges and Procedures concludes “rushing to hit the 2018 deadline would risk ill-thought out changes being introduced with proper public debate.”