Votes at parish assemblies are undemocratic, says Crowcroft

Votes at parish assemblies are undemocratic, says Crowcroft

St Helier Constable Simon Crowcroft says parish votes, which are currently made in public meetings, should be replaced with an online system to ensure that the voice of the majority is heard.

Mr Crowcroft, who recently announced that parishioners would vote on the future of St Helier House, the high-rise care home that closed last month due to fire safety concerns, said that with people’s busy working and family lives, many could not attend parish meetings. He added that the Town Hall could not accommodate the entire St Helier electorate.

‘It is not satisfactory that big decisions are being taken by a tiny number of parishioners,’ he said.

His comments come after St Lawrence Constable Deidre Mezbourian announced that parishioners would have to provide photographic identification to attend an upcoming meeting on controversial plans to extend the parish church. Members of the media – except those who live in St Lawrence – have also been banned from attending the parish assembly, which will involve a secret ballot on proposals to create toilets, kitchen facilities and disabled access at the church.

Mr Crowcroft said: ‘The problem St Helier has is that we have around 18,000 people who are entitled to vote. We can only get 250 people into the Town Hall. The current system does not really fit the bill.

‘We’ve got to come up with a way of assessing parishioners’ wishes which does not rely on physical entry to parish hall meetings. It is not democratic – it is logistically impossible.’

Mr Crowcroft said that as the States was looking at introducing online voting for future elections, the parishes should consider adopting the technology for ballots.

‘The parish assembly is the only body we can use,’ he said. ‘It is something I’m looking at to see whether we can get a law in place that would allow parishes some kind of referendum [on issues], even if the Town Hall could be open for the whole day for people to cast their vote.

‘Ideally I would like to see an online system [people could use to vote]. It would be nice if the parishes could be the leaders of this.’

Geraint Jennings, Procureur du bien public for St Helier and staunch advocate for changing the parish’s political system, agreed that online voting would enable more people to have their say.

However, he stressed that online voting should only be undertaken for major issues, rather than every issue on the agenda of a parish assembly.

He added: ‘The problem is, of course, that if you are opposed to a proposal and go to a parish assembly, you can hear arguments that might change your mind. That quite often happens.

‘It’s a small number of hopefully informed voters who have argued backwards and forwards, rather than a large number that have not heard the arguments.’

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