The 2020 Guernsey general election took place on 7 October 2020 to elect 38 members of the

States of Guernsey The States of Guernsey (french: États de Guernesey), sometimes referred to as the Government of Guernsey, is the parliament and government of the British Crown dependency of Guernsey. Some laws and ordinances approved by the States of Guern ...

. Originally scheduled to be held in June 2020, it was delayed a year to 2021 due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

before being brought forward to its final date. This election was the first on the island to include political parties, as the first ones were organised and registered in 2020. On 16 October 2020,

Peter Ferbrache Peter Terence Richard Ferbrache (born 1951) is an elected Deputy in the States of Guernsey and president of the Policy and Resources Committee. Early life and education Ferbrache was born in Guernsey where he was educated at Elizabeth Coll ...

was elected president of the Policy and Resources Committee by a vote of 23–17, ahead of incumbent

Gavin St Pier Gavin Scooter St Pier (born January 1967) is an elected Deputy in the States of Guernsey and former president of the Policy and Resources Committee. Political appointments He was elected at the general election on 18 April 2012 as a deputy for ...

Timetable

* 21 August: Last day the public was able to register to vote /

Electoral roll An electoral roll (variously called an electoral register, voters roll, poll book or other description) is a compilation that lists persons who are entitled to vote for particular elections in a particular jurisdiction. The list is usually broke ...

closed * 1 September: Candidate nomination period opened * 4 September: Deadline (4pm) for the delivery of candidate nomination papers * 25 September: Deadline (midnight) to apply for a

postal vote Postal voting is voting in an election where ballot papers are distributed to electors (and typically returned) by post, in contrast to electors voting in person at a polling station or electronically via an electronic voting system. In an ele ...

* 3–6 October:

Advance Advance commonly refers to: *Advance, an offensive push in sports, games, thoughts, military combat, or sexual or romantic pursuits *Advance payment for goods or services *Advance against royalties, a payment to be offset against future royalty pa ...

"super" polling stations are open * 6 October: Advance

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

polling stations are open * 7 October: Polling day (polling stations open at 8 am and close at 8 pm) 6am deadline for posting postal ballots. * 8 October: Counting of votes * 10–11 October:

Recount An election recount is a repeat tabulation of votes cast in an election that is used to determine the correctness of an initial count. Recounts will often take place if the initial vote tally during an election is extremely close. Election reco ...

Electoral system

The electoral system was changed as a result of a 2018 referendum. The 38 members of the States will be elected from a single island-wide constituency by

plurality-at-large voting Plurality block voting, also known as plurality-at-large voting, block vote or block voting (BV) is a non- proportional voting system for electing representatives in multi-winner elections. Each voter may cast as many votes as the number of sea ...

, with voters being able to cast up to 38 votes. Prior to the elections, the age for candidates to stand was reduced from 20 to 18. The voting age is 16.Guernsey 2020 island-wide election date set
BBC News, 25 April 2019 Campaign spending per candidate was also reduced from £9,000 to £6,000.Guernsey 2020 election candidate spending capped at £6,000
BBC News, 12 December 2019 For the first time, a Guernsey election was scrutinised by a team of international observers who will produce two reports on the process.

Candidates

A total of 119 candidates filed nominations. There were 28 female candidates (24%), which was an increase over the previous two elections, with 10 of 12 current female deputies standing for re-election. Twenty-nine candidates in total stood for re-election. The election was the first including political parties, as the first parties were organised in 2020. Rick Lowe, a candidate for the Guernsey Party, withdrew from the election following a medical diagnosis. All but 6 candidates provided a manifesto for printing in a book which was then sent to every address that had a registered voter. The book and the mandates from the other 6 candidates were published on the election2020 website. A small number of candidates paid the cost of sending their expanded manifestos to registered voters.

Hustings

An all day public hustings event at Beau Sejour on Sunday 20 September with 116 candidates showed disappointing numbers of the public attending. Those that did were mainly elderly people, with Islanders thinking that having over 100 candidates makes it too difficult and time-consuming to research which candidates have acceptable views on matters of personal interest.

Postal votes

Over 21,000 postal votes were requested, representing over 67% of registered voters.

Results

The results were reported at 01:15 local time on Friday, 9 October. The new deputies will be sworn in on 16 October. Four unsuccessful candidates who had polled within 493 votes (2% of voters) of the final elected candidate's votes requested a recount. The recount did not change the elected candidates but adjusted the number of voters from 24,647 to 24,627 with votes for a number of candidates increasing or decreasing by single digit amounts. The largest change for one candidate was 11 votes, while the number of rejected ballots increased by 67, two pairs of unelected candidates switched final positions and two candidates of the same surname were mixed up in the first count, receiving each other's count, which was fixed. The elected deputies will serve until the next general election in June 2025.

Summary results

A total of 18 deputies were re-elected, while 20 were newcomers. The number of female deputies fell from 12 to 8, with four re-elected and four new deputies, giving 21% female representation in the States.

Full results

Withdrew for medical reasons

References

External links

* {{Guernsey elections

Guernsey Guernsey (; Guernésiais: ''Guernési''; french: Guernesey) is an island in the English Channel off the coast of Normandy that is part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, a British Crown Dependency. It is the second largest of the Channel Islands ...

2020 in Guernsey Elections in Guernsey