And a play by Love Theatre produced for those aged 16 and over is to tour schools and colleges the week before the Easter holidays to also help boost the number of people on the electoral roll, the States Assembly heard.
Constable Len Norman, the chairman of the Constable’s Committee, was asked during question time about levels of voter registration and efforts to increase voter turnout for the election. Under the law, the Constable of each parish is responsible for completing the electoral roll.
Mr Norman told Members that the organisation vote.je would be ‘pushing people to register’ through various methods, including via posts on social media, as well as using traditional media such as posters and banners.
‘They have also produced three short videos, which are being translated into Portuguese and Polish, that explain all about the registration process,’ he said.
Mr Norman, who is the Constable of St Clement, also said that for the first time next month a letter will be sent out to all Island homes with a list of people registered to vote to give those not on the electoral roll the opportunity to sign up.
However, he said that although ensuring people were signed up to the register was ‘very important’, the main focus of the vote.je campaign is to get
those registered ‘actually to vote’.
‘Registration is only half of the democratic process,’ he said.
Deputy Geoff Southern also asked Mr Norman what he would be doing to address the number of people on the electoral roll in St Clement, which he said had fallen by 700 in two years.
‘After the referendum, which the States decided to go against what the public had decided, a lot of people actually came into the parish hall and said, “I don’t want to be on the electoral roll any more because you don’t take any notice of what we say”,’ Mr Norman said.
‘The other thing that happened in St Celment was Andium knocked down Le Squez estate so we lost a heck of a lot of voters at that time and it is currently being rebuilt, so it is not surprising that in St Clement the numbers went down.’
