referendum A referendum, plebiscite, or ballot measure is a Direct democracy, direct vote by the Constituency, electorate (rather than their Representative democracy, representatives) on a proposal, law, or political issue. A referendum may be either bin ...

electoral reform Electoral reform is a change in electoral systems that alters how public desires, usually expressed by cast votes, produce election results. Description Reforms can include changes to: * Voting systems, such as adoption of proportional represen ...

was held on 10 October 2018 in

Guernsey Guernsey ( ; Guernésiais: ''Guernési''; ) is the second-largest island in the Channel Islands, located west of the Cotentin Peninsula, Normandy. It is the largest island in the Bailiwick of Guernsey, which includes five other inhabited isl ...

to determine an electoral system for elections to the

States of Guernsey The States of Guernsey (), officially the States of Deliberation and 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 ...

.Referendum on Guernsey's Electoral System
Government of Guernsey Voters were asked to rank five different proposed

electoral system An electoral or voting system is a set of rules used to determine the results of an election. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections may take place in business, nonprofit organizations and inf ...

s, with a run-off system used to determine the winning proposal. Option A, a 38-member constituency covering the whole island, won the vote. As a result of

voter turnout In political science, voter turnout is the participation rate (often defined as those who cast a ballot) of a given election. This is typically either the percentage of Voter registration, registered voters, Suffrage, eligible voters, or all Voti ...

(45%) being above the 40% vote threshold, the referendum was binding.

Vote counting system

The referendum itself used

instant-runoff voting Instant-runoff voting (IRV; ranked-choice voting (RCV), preferential voting, alternative vote) is a single-winner ranked voting election system where Sequential loser method, one or more eliminations are used to simulate Runoff (election), ...

, also called the alternative vote. In the initial count, only first choices were counted. As no proposal received a majority of the vote, the proposal that received the fewest votes was eliminated; any ballots with this proposal as first choice were redistributed to the other options according to the second preference. This process was repeated until a proposal had a majority of the votes. A quorum of 40% voter turnout was required for the result to be binding, following a promise by the States.

Electoral system proposals

Voters were presented with five options for a new electoral systemThe five options in the Referendum
Government of Guernsey Aspects of the pre-existing electoral system preserved by all five options were

fixed-term election A fixed-term election is an election that occurs on a set date, which cannot be changed by incumbent politicians other than through exceptional mechanisms if at all. The office holder generally takes office for a set amount of time, and their te ...

s and

plurality block voting Plurality block voting is a type of block voting method for multi-winner elections. Each voter may cast as many votes as the number of seats to be filled. The candidates with the most votes are elected. The usual result when the candidates div ...

, in which each voter can vote for as many candidates as there are seats in the constituency. All but one option preserved the practice of holding a

general election A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from By-election, by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become vacant between general elections. Gener ...

every four years. *Option A: One 38-member constituency covering the whole island. Deputies would serve four-year terms. *Option B: Seven constituencies with five or six seats. Deputies would serve four-year terms. *Option C: Seven district constituencies with three, four or five seats, and one 10-member constituency covering the whole island; voters would vote in one district constituency and also the whole-island constituency. Deputies would serve four-year terms. *Option D: Four constituencies with 9, 10 or 11 seats. Deputies would serve four-year terms. *Option E: A single island-wide 38-member constituency with one-third of the members (12 or 13) elected every two years for a six-year term.

Vote counting system

Electoral system proposals

Results

References

External links