Policy Centre Jersey

Note of discussion meeting held on 26 May 2023

Introduction

On 7 April 2023 the Policy Centre published a research paper Election turnout in Jersey, written by the Centre’s Research Adviser, Sir Mark Boleat. On 26 May 2023 the Centre held a roundtable discussion on the subject, chaired by the Chair of the Centre’s Advisory Council, Simon Burgess. The roundtable was attended by 30 people – members of the Centre’s Advisory Council, commentators and invited guests. This note summarises the discussion.

Mark Boleat’s opening comments

Turnout in Jersey elections over the last 30 years has averaged 44.1%. Turnout in the 2022 election at 41.7% was the third lowest over the last 30 years.
In the 2022 election turnout was much higher in the 65+ age group (53%) than in the under 35 age group (17%), in rural areas (40%) than in urban areas (18%) and among owner-occupiers (41%) than among tenants (16%).
Turnout in Jersey elections is lower than in all the OECD countries. Switzerland, at 45%, is the only country with a figure below 60%. Turnout in the last UK General Election was 67.3% and in the Isle of Man 50.7%. Turnout in the last Guernsey election was 79.7%, nearly double the Jersey figure of 41.7%, although this is partly explained by different practices with respect to the electoral register.
Compared with the UK, turnout in Jersey is more heavily concentrated among the elderly and owner-occupiers. In the 65+ age group turnout in Jersey was 53%, compared to 74% in the UK. The variation in the 16-34 age group was much wider - 17% as against 51%. Similarly, tenants are more than three times as likely to vote in the UK than in Jersey.
Opinion surveys suggest that the reasons for the low turnout are mainly general negative attitudes towards the political system in Jersey. The main reasons given 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%
~~Didn’t know enough about the candidates 22%
Voter registration is also low in Jersey. For the 2022 election only 75% of those eligible to vote registered to do so, so only 31% of those eligible to vote actually voted. The voter registration proportion is ten percentage points below the UK figure. There were significant variations between the parishes, with much higher figures in the country parishes.
Within the present arrangements voter turnout can best be increased by increasing postal voting and simplifying the voter registration form.
However, turnout will remain low as long as the fundamental issue of distrust in the political system remains.

Comments by John Reardon, co-author of a paper on Guernsey’s 2020 General Election

Guernsey’s 2020 general election was the first under island-wide voting – a profound change to established electoral arrangements that normally takes at least one additional election to embed. 38 members were elected from a ballot paper of 119 candidates.
This presented significant administrative and logistical challenges across a range of areas, including public understanding, and engagement. There is no rolling register in a non-election year and the election team have to organise voter registration at the same time as organising an election.
The election was held during the pandemic, just weeks before the UK’s second national lockdown.
Guernsey operates a broad franchise that includes anyone ordinarily resident on the Island even without a permanent fixed address, and all prisoners, with the latter category having symbolic importance.
A number of measures taken by the elections team were clearly helpful in improving turnout, including pre-polling days, super-polling stations open to all voters, a candidates’ booklet (similar to that distributed in English mayoral elections), encouragement of postal voting (67% of votes were postal ballots) and well-organised hustings meetings.
However, Guernsey’s low voter registration conceals what is still a low turnout. There is the obvious issue of the gap between election turnout (79%) and those eligible who are registered to vote (49.6%). Registration was an issue as opposed to low turnout in itself, so it's a matter of administration and organisation more than anything. This is an issue across all three Crown Dependencies. Are there common themes?

Comments by Bob Roberts, Deputy Chief Executive, City of London Corporation

The City of London faced a significant threat of falling voter registration and electoral turnout, partly as a consequence of Covid. It was facing a potential catastrophic problem of very low voting numbers.
It implemented a vigorous and assertive election engagement campaign using social media to increase voter registration as a result of which the number of registered voters increased by 43%. LinkedIn was particularly useful.
Physical and digital postcards were distributed to voters. Digital tools were used to enable people to use postal votes more easily with downloaded forms .
Election turnout increased with the highest number of votes cast in a decade.
The governing body of the City also had an aggressive campaign, unpopular with some, to increase the number of candidates.
The City’s experience was that the stronger the competition for individual seats the higher the turnout.

Points made in the discussion

Guernsey

Could high election turnout (79%) be attributed to the single island-wide vote? It was noted that Guernsey’s turnout was significantly higher than Jersey’s prior to the recent election.
One prominent Guernsey politician thought the last election was an outstanding success; another thought it was a disaster.
Now, there is some concern in Guernsey as to whether the “quality” of elected candidates suffered at the expense of quantity of votes.
There is a good case for a detailed analysis of why Guernsey has a consistently higher turnout that Jersey. It may be partly attributed to Guernsey having a more stable and insular population.

Making the present system work better

Postal voting can be increased.
Some polling stations are poorly located, typically in parish halls rather than centres of population.
Enabling people to vote at any polling station or at one or more “super polling stations” would help.
But such measures would have only a modest effect.

Digital inclusion

Jersey’s election processes are antiquated. Work is being done to improve electronic voter registration.
Electronic voting is seen by some as important, but a recognition that there are practical issues in introducing a system in the absence of a digital identity.
It is important not to ignore those who are not comfortable with digital communication. Many people with disabilities did not receive all the information that was put online.
Electronic voting would not address the issue of people’s unwillingness to vote.

Young voters

There is a need to ensure that school students are adequately informed about the political system so as to be better able to participate. Young people don’t understand the Jersey system and some see UK politics as more relevant to them.
It should be possible automatically to register young people when they reach voting age.
Young people are used to doing things electronically – voting in person does not work for them.

Earlier engagement by candidates

Candidates engage with electors only shortly before the election whereas in other jurisdictions there is much earlier engagement – eg prospective parliamentary candidates in the British system.

Minority communities

The point about earlier engagement applies particularly to minority communities. Polish and Romanian nationals voted in huge numbers in Jersey for their national elections but were reluctant to vote in the Jersey election.
More information was produced for minority communities but it was poorly presented. Documents should not be translated using Google Translate. The translation of “constable” gave the wrong impression.

Compulsory voting

Australia has compulsory voting.
However, the penalty for not voting is very modest and often not enforced.
People in Australia align with one of two parties and the big majority vote accordingly.
The high turnout in Australian elections can largely be attributed to cultural issues rather than compulsory voting.

Voting qualifications

Two year resident requirement for voting was deeply resented by many people; it gave the wrong impression – that newcomers were not part of the community. A change in the law on this would promote inclusion.
The voter registration form, partly because of complex eligibility requirements, almost seemed to be designed to deter people registering. Jersey’s form has 1,000 words, Guernsey’s 100.

The key issues – disengagement from the political system

People will vote if they are “invested in the community”. If people are here only for work with no intention of being permanent residents, they will be less inclined to vote.
However, the flip side also applies – if people are not allowed to vote or to have permanent residence, they are less likely to feel invested in the community.
General recognition that making it easy to vote – in person, by post or electronically – was desirable in itself but would not have a huge effect because the problem was that people did not want to vote.
A general feeling that “nothing will change” – the hospital and ignoring the results of the referendum were cited as examples.
Young people are particularly disengaged, perhaps influenced by the housing situation that they face. If people cannot see the prospect of having their own home, they will be less inclined to feel part of the community and vote.

Concluding comments

The key point is that people don’t vote because they think it is not worth it. Some improvements can be made to improve the arrangements for voting but these will have only a marginal effect.
The issue of low voter turnout is multi-faceted and needs to be addressed in several different ways.
There is a case for a group now of Assembly members and others to start addressing the problem with recommendations by the end of year.
A detailed comparison with the position in Guernsey would be helpful.
The way that the political system operates and is presented needs to change so that people want to participate in elections.

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Election Turnout Meeting Notes