Guernsey guide to Jersey’s election

 

Jersey will be going to the polls to elect a new States Assembly on Wednesday 22 June 2022.

If you’re interested in what it would take to get elected in Guernsey in April 2025, there’s lots to learn from tracking the progress of the Jersey candidates and seeing what works and doesn’t work for them. Check out the candidates.

Election system

Jersey recently reformed its election system. Voting will now take place in nine constituencies, rather than 12 individual parishes. Constituencies have been drawn to better reflect the population of each area. The island-wide role of Senator has been removed.

There will be 37 Deputies in the new States Assembly, plus 12 Connétables – unlike in Guernsey, parish constables are also States members. In addition, there is now a ‘None of the Candidates’ option on ballot papers if an election is uncontested.

Jersey’s new-look electoral map: The changes explained (7 Jun, ITV Channel).

Parties

New political parties have been formed in addition to the existing Reform Jersey party (14 candidates). They are the Jersey Alliance (14 candidates, including one for Connétable) and a coalition between the Jersey Liberal Conservatives (5 candidates) and the Progress Party (4 candidates). Better Way 2022 is not a party, it’s a collaboration between 5 independent candidates.

There are 76 candidates for Deputy and 16 for Connétable, that’s 92 in total. Of the 76 for Deputy, 36 are in a party and 40 are independents.

Female representation

Overall, 35% of the 92 election candidates are women, compared with Guernsey’s 24% in our 2020 election. In 2022 the States Assembly in Jersey was 29% female.

Digging into the detail, here’s the good news:

– 43% of Reform Jersey candidates are women, as are 40% of Jersey Liberal Conservatives and 43% of the 40 independents who are standing for Deputy.
– Better Way 2022 is majority female (three women out of five).

Here’s the bad news:

– Just 2 of Jersey Alliance‘s 13 candidates for Deputy are women, that’s 15%.
– Women only make up 25% of the 16 candidates standing for Connétable. And two of those four women are competing for the same seat in St Lawrence.
– Eight of the Connétable elections only have one candidate. All of those candidates are men.

 

How to check out the candidates:

1. Start with ITV Channel TV’s interactive map (scroll down the page to see it) showing who’s standing in each constituency and how many seats are available.

2. The ITV Channel map links to each candidate’s individual manifesto and video on the official election website, vote.je.

If you want to look at candidates in more detail:

3. We’ve kept a list of the candidates we’ve found on Twitter. To access it, go to the Women in Public Life Twitter account, click on the three dots at the top and then ‘View lists’. The hashtags are #JerseyElection22 and #JSY22.

4. Vote.je has recordings of the hustings and copies of the manifesto booklets for each district.

5. Two media outlets have an election page bringing together all their coverage:

Jersey Evening Post
ITV Channel TV

You can also sign up for the Jersey Evening Post’s daily newsletter – it’s free.

6. If you like digesting information through podcasts, Bailiwick Express has recorded a ‘Meet the Candidates’ podcast for each parish for candidates to introduce themselves to the public.

7. If you want to hear the candidates answering questions, BBC Jersey are hosting an ‘Election Call’ each lunchtime with a different parish featured each day. You can listen again on BBC Sounds.

Learning for the future:

The ‘Standing for Election’ section of vote.je has lots of useful information that is relevant to a potential Guernsey candidate for our election in April 2025, especially the advice on using social media.