It’s been a full week since Guernsey went to the polls to decide who would fill the vacant seat in the States, with Ross Le Brun proving victorious.
Eleven hopefuls had been nominated for election, all eager to engage with potential constituents and keen to claim their space on the political landscape.
Deputy-elect Le Brun won a seat in the States for the first time on his fourth attempt, with 20% of voters deciding that he was their Deputy of choice, or at least the best choice on offer.
Despite sealing a resounding victory with a fifth of voters backing him, the actual turnout at the first island-wide by-election tells a different tale, suggesting we have an election process that nobody wanted to engage with last week.
Just 17% of those who are registered to vote turned out to cast their ballots, with 22,761 people deciding to ditch the polls, and enjoy their Wednesday in other ways instead.
While Deputy-elect Le Brun is now planning how he will now prove himself in the States, the other 10 election hopefuls, seeking a return to the States or a first chance in politics, were left facing a return to their normal lives.
The election hopefuls previous attempts
The 2026 by-election in Guernsey saw eleven candidates compete for office, with a mix of established political figures and newcomers.
Now-Deputy-elect Le Brun secured first place with 953 votes, or 20% of the total votes cast.
Being polltopper is clearly the highest he’s ever placed, but the percentage of votes he received is comparable to what he’s received in the past.
At the June 2025 general election, Deputy-elect Le Brun received 3,893 votes, meaning 19.7% of those who voted supported him. In 2020 he received 4,532 votes, or 18.4% of the total votes cast.
Both figures are fairly similar to this year’s stats, but his three island wide election attempts all saw Deputy-elect Le Brun receive fewer votes than he did during his first campaign.
2016 saw Guernsey’s last district elections and Ross Le Brun’s name was on a ballot sheet for the first time.
He narrowly missed out on a seat in the Castel though, coming seventh with 834 votes or 25.6% of all votes cast.
We would have seen Deputy Le Brun in that year, if the States hadn’t voted to reduce the number of deputies from 45 to 38 between 2012 and 2016, reducing the number of seats available in the Castel by two to five at the same time.
Deputy-elect Le Brun wasn’t the only candidate on the ballot sheet in 2026 with a decade-long string of election attempts.
2016 was the first year that 2026’s runner-up took to the polls as well, and he did it in some style too.
Hat wearing former-Deputy Carl Meerveld may have missed out on a spot in this year’s by-election by a margin of just 62 votes, after losing his seat in 2020, but in 2016 he tasted success from the electoral roll for the first time.
On that occasion he finished sixth out of the twelve who were nominated in St Sampson’s, receiving 1,377 votes or 39.2% of the total votes cast.
Once in the States, Mr Meerveld was a vocal supporter of island wide voting, and he campaigned for Option A at 2018’s referendum which led us to the situation we have now, with all of our deputies elected island wide.
Then-Deputy Meerveld survived the curse of island wide voting which cost some of his political colleagues dearly in 2020, but he did drop in the popularity stakes.
He was re-elected in 2020, but only just, coming 38th in the polls with 6,477 votes or 26.3% of all votes cast.
By 2025, then-Deputy Meerveld found his luck had run out.
He actually received a slightly higher percentage of all votes cast (26.5%) but he received fewer votes overall (5,225), coming 42nd in the second fully island wide election.
Not one to be put off from the political game of chance, Mr Meerveld returned to the polls in this year’s by-election but like others he was left disappointed with the result.
Out of that crop of eleven, only one other candidate has stood the same amount of times as Deputy Le Brun and former Deputy Meerveld, but the numbers paint a sad and frank picture for Rob Harnish.
The election hopeful has tried his hand at each States election since 2016, where he received 22.9% of the vote in St Peter Port North with 605 votes, coming 13th out of 14 candidates.
In 2020, Mr Harnish came 94th out of 119 candidates in the first fully island-wide election being chosen by 2,024 voters, with 8.2% of all votes cast.
Last year’s election saw a third unsuccessful attempt in a row for Mr Harnish. He placed 70th with 14.3% of the vote (2,830 votes).
Last week’s by-election was another defeat for Mr Harnish, with him placing last with just 79 votes, or 1.6% of all the votes cast.
Of the other by-election contenders Julie-Anne Headington had a strong first attempt at persuading voters she was the woman for the job. She took third place with 634 votes (13.3%).
Tamara Menteshvili placed fourth with 440 votes (9.2%). She’d only attempted election once before, and this year’s by-election saw a genuine improvement over her 59th-place finish in 2025.
Former-deputy Sam Haskins came fifth in the by-election with 407 votes (8.5%), having previously placed 46th in 2025. He was successful at his first attempt at an election, coming 17th in 2020.
Six years ago Mr Haskins secured 36.1% of the total votes cast, gaining a mighty 8,896 votes and a seat in the states chamber.
Another former-deputy, Andy Taylor, finished sixth with 388 votes in this year’s by-election.
Mr Taylor did not participate in the 2025 election but came 27th in 2020, gaining 7,770 votes or 31.5% of all votes cast.
Nikki Symons achieved seventh place in last week’s vote, with 371 people supporting her second election attempt. Last year’s election saw her receive 23.7% (4,676) of the vote as a new candidate, though she fell just short of a States place, coming 54th.
Stephen Rouxel and Jon Wilson placed eighth and ninth in the by-election, respectively receiving 230 (4.95%) and 162 votes (3.49%).
It was Mr Rouxel’s first election attempt, while Mr Wilson had stood in 2020 where he received 4,282 votes (17.39%).
Luke Graham took tenth place in the by-election with 88 votes or 1.9% of the total number of votes cast.
He stood for election for the first time in 2025 where he finished 78th with 1,721 votes, or 8.7% of the votes cast.
The roller-coaster of election rules
This was Guernsey’s first attempt at a by-election under the current electoral system.
Voter engagement has decreased significantly since fully island wide voting was introduced in 2020 – 20 years after we stopped voting for Conseillers on an island wide basis.
The 2020 election saw huge numbers of election hopefuls nominated (119) and a 79.7% turnout, suggesting the new format was what the public wanted.
By the time of the second island wide election in 2025, candidate numbers had reduced to 82, and turnout dropped to 72%.
A by-election often gets a lower turnout than a general election, but the gap between registered voters and voter turnout fell off a cliff in 2026.
The most recent comparable by-election was held in 2016 under the previous district system.
Four candidates were nominated, with a 33.59% voter turnout.
While that is lower than the 74% seen in the general election earlier that same year, it is far higher than the 17.32% turnout at the first island wide by-election last week.
It’s reported that 2016’s by-election cost the island £51,000 to stage, whilst the 2026 by-election was forecast to cost £75,000.
That meant each vote in the Vale cost £29.58 in October 2016, compared to a £15.75 price tag for each vote cast last week across the island.
So despite getting almost double the turnout, 2016’s by-election was also close to double the cost per vote cast.
What led to election apathy?
Much of the blame online seems to lie with island-wide voting.
However when reading into the stats it doesn’t seem to be that choice that has specifically turned off voters.
2020 saw a record number of manifestos to read, and yet it also saw a record turnout. It’s said that people dislike change, but in this case that change seemed to engage more of the electorate, and attracted more individuals to the democratic process.
The real reason for a mass-turn-off to election could come down to a multitude of factors in reality.
It could come down to the ultimate betrayal that many felt after last year’s election, when one of the most successful candidates returned to the States was arrested just a month later. He is now serving a nine year prison sentence.
Guernsey could have experience voter fatigue with people asked to return to the polls less than a year after the general election, having read more than 100 different manifestos and having chosen up to 38 candidates to vote for just last June.
Either way, the low turnout at the by-election will feed into a wider discussion on the future of island wide voting.
The President of the political committee with responsibility for our democratic system said last week’s turnout and “island-wide voting more generally” are being looked at.