By Mark Boleat
ELECTIONS, and more particularly voter turnout, were under the spotlight in Jersey and Guernsey last week. Guernsey held its general election and, while admittedly of less significance, the Policy Centre Jersey held a discussion meeting on voter turnout.
Some common themes emerged from the two events which merit detailed consideration in both islands, and perhaps even some sharing of experience and ideas as neither island is in a good position.
Referenda are always fraught with difficulty. Few people bother to study the issues closely, voting is often influenced by factors other than the subject of the referendum and turnout is often low.
Guernsey’s referendum in 2018 on the composition of the States of Deliberation was an example of how not to do a referendum. Voters were presented with five options and asked to rank them. This clearly put off many people as being too complicated. Turnout was just 45% and this in an island which traditionally (unlike Jersey) has recorded 70%+ turnout at elections.
The two options which had the greatest support were for ten island-wide and 28 district Deputies, and a single constituency of 38 Deputies. The second option secured 5,304 first-preference votes – 37% of those voting and 17% of those on the electoral register. After the least-favoured options were discounted, that option was declared the winner with 6,017 votes, 42% of those who voted and 19% of those on the register. So Guernsey made a fundamental change to its constitution with not even a majority of those voting in favour.
In 2020, the Guernsey people seem to have embraced the new system with enthusiasm, perhaps because of its novelty. Turnout was 80%, although on average people used only 26 of their 38 votes.
But disillusion quickly set in. A Chief Minister was elected by the Assembly not because he came top of the poll – he came fifth – but presumably because of deals done. He was subsequently removed in a vote of no confidence.
The politician who comfortably topped the poll, Gavin St Pier, in a Jersey Evening Post article on 25 January 2025, said: “Guernsey’s Scrutiny Management Committee, in a review of the first election using the system, politely described (in an understated way) the election process as ‘a low-information choice’ for voters. It produces a ‘democracy’ that is more Athenian than representative in its nature, akin to a random fruit machine resulting in 38 individuals being dragged off the street one day and dropped into government the next. This is almost certainly the reason that it is truly unique worldwide without any long line of visiting jurisdictions keen to understand how it works.”
One obvious deficiency of the new system was the breaking of the link between elected representatives and the people. So there have been no local “surgeries”, and someone raising an issue about a specific area cannot turn to a local representative. As a result, multiple members – or no members – may take up local issues.
The disillusion was reflected in the 2025 election. The number of people who bothered to register to vote fell by 3,500 so only a little over half of those entitled to vote registered to do so. And of those, only 72% bothered to vote. So while 72% is the official turnout figure, it is thoroughly misleading.
If Guernsey adopted Jersey’s plan for automatic registration of electors, its turnout rate would probably fall to below 50%, much closer to Jersey’s level. The electorate also found selecting 38 candidates unattractive and on average used just 22 of their votes compared with 26 in 2020.
So what about Jersey? The facts are clear, deeply worrying and merit repeating. Jersey’s turnout is bottom of the international league table and voting is heavily biased towards the elderly, owner-occupiers and those living in the country parishes. Those over 64 are three times more likely to vote than those under 35 and owner-occupiers are more than twice as likely to vote than tenants.
So why is this? It is not because the people of Jersey are so satisfied with the government and the Assembly that they see no need to vote. People don’t want to vote because they see no point in doing so. Surveys consistently show a low level of trust in the Assembly and in the government. Reasons for people not voting in the 2022 election were “wouldn’t have made a difference” (30%), “don’t trust the political system” (28%), “not interested in the election” (24%) and “didn’t know enough about the candidates” (22%).
The discussion meeting threw up some interesting points. Great efforts are made by the States Greffe through its outreach work to encourage interest in the political system and voting. But young people in particular are not interested. The Jersey political system is not well taught in schools, and young people get their information from social rather than traditional media. Various initiatives to encourage voting were discussed including the decision to have the election on a Sunday, the possibility of compulsory voting and making it easier to have a postal vote (Jersey currently makes it difficult to vote by post; other jurisdictions make it easy).
Normally, a general election decides the composition of the government of the day. But in neither Jersey nor Guernsey is this the case. Rather, individuals are elected as independents, making whatever promises they like safe in the knowledge that they cannot be held to account for failing to implement them. The elected members then get together to decide who should be the Chief Minister.
Potential Chief Ministers have their manifestos but these are presented only to members of the Assembly and the reality is that the voting depends to a significant extent, as it does with coalitions in other jurisdictions, on deals being done. The public in both islands have no say in the composition of the government and therefore in the policies that it will pursue.
Herein lies an almost intractable problem. Party politics is an answer to this problem but the electorate have made it fairly clear that they do not want a party political system.
The problems are then compounded because the system fails to produce a framework in which even government commitments are meaningful. The hospital debacle is a good example. Another is the unanimous decision of the States Assembly to impose legally binding targets on reducing emissions but then to do nothing of any significance to achieve those targets. Targets set by the government or the Assembly often are meaningless.
Legislation for a wind farm, regardless of the merits of the case, was promised for late 2024. It is now mid-2025. The Assembly voted to require an Energy Strategy by Q4 2023. This did not happen. On 22 April 2025 the States Assembly resolved that the Council of Ministers develop an energy strategy by the end of 2026. This may or may not happen.
And at a more practical level, several reports, notably that by Hugo Mascie Taylor, have identified major deficiencies in the delivery of the sort of health service that the people of Jersey are entitled to expect.
Both islands also suffer from constant changes in the composition of their parliaments, on which most people have not the slightest interest. In most jurisdictions such changes are few and far between and generally have to meet significant thresholds through a well-designed referendum or a “super majority” in the parliament.
Guernsey did have a threshold for the results of the referendum to be binding, but this was only that turnout exceeded 40% of those on the electoral register. So it made a major change to its constitution when it was supported by just 42% of those who actually bothered to vote.
And Jersey has made the significant change to its constitution, to reintroduce Senators, by just a single vote in the Assembly.
I have no doubt that in Guernsey there will be moves to reform the system, influenced by the huge reduction in turnout and the obvious absurdity of the current system. Ideally, consideration of the new system should begin immediately and needs to be fully thought through unlike the last time.
And in Jersey the States Assembly Members should stop treating the constitution as something that belongs solely to them with an entitlement to make last-minute changes in a piecemeal way which have significant effects that are not fully thought through and which are influenced by personal or political interests.
Jersey is facing its third general election with a different constitution, one more complicated than the one it is replacing, but less than a year before the election none of the arrangements have been finalised. There is a case for an Island-wide vote but not one imposed piecemeal without consideration of wider issues on the make-up of the Assembly.
Whatever the outcome of the election, better arrangements are needed for the future and need to be settled in the first year of the new Assembly, not the last year. And those arrangements should produce a system that helps to ensure the delivery of policies not the making of promises, the passing of laws or decisions in principle.
Sir Mark Boleat has held a number of leadership positions in companies, public bodies and charities in Jersey and in the UK. He is senior adviser to the Policy Centre Jersey.
