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ST Helier voters have until 8 pm to make their choice for Constable.

Jersey Democratic Alliance challenger Alvin Aaron is taking on two-term Constable Simon Crowcroft for the position of ‘father of the parish’ today. Voters gathered outside polling stations early this morning. There was a hiccup at the St Helier No 3 station at Rouge Bouillon School when officials struggled to seal the ballot box with wax.

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Simon Crowcroft has been returned as Constable of St Helier for a third term.

In Wednesday's election he beat the only other candidate Alvin Aaron by a margin of ten to one.

In a turnout approaching 19% Constable Crowcroft polled 2,317 votes against 253 for Mr Aaron who was standing as a member of the Jersey Democratic Alliance.

UserName

LOL, what a waste of time. That will have surprised almost no-one apart from the clueless JDA

Jason the Maverick

Alvin just wasn't good enough. I think there will be a tiny bit more interest in the October elections though.....

AHITS

I think you're right there, but I also think the interest would be far greater if there were a single online focal point regarding that issue, serving to unify, motivate and organise people to vote accordingly - unless there is already one and I've missed it?

Jason the Maverick

To be honest I think independants are better, though I guess with a party at least you can get votes through. The whole States of Jersey charade is stupid really.

AHITS

I believe party politics would hugely benefit this island on a number of levels.

At the moment our politicians can ignore the public, insult the public and have priorities at odds with those of the public - and it doesn't matter because they know that to hold onto their job they only need a couple of hundred voters to turn out in their parish next election, the same few hundred who have probably been voting for them habitually for a number of years.

With party politics, each party would know that they as a whole would be judged upon the behaviour of their members. For example, if Frank Walker and Terry Le Seur were in Party A, it's probably a very safe bet that Party A would not be getting elected next time round, largely on the basis of those two individuals being members.

With that concept in mind, parties would have to be seen to be firmly enforcing accountability where neccessary, and placing in primary position the will of the electorate who voted them into power. They would have to be seen to discipline or remove members who go against the party policy. The whole 'old boys club' and 'feathering of the nest' nonsense would have to seen to be stamped out....because not to do so would lose the party the next election, and effectively place the entire membership out of a job for at least the following four years. The days of individuals relying on just 200 votes in a country parish to secure them a job for life would be long gone.

As a consequence of all that, the current epidemic of public apathy toward politics would no doubt begin to fade.

Party politics would force our politicians to remember that they were voted in to work for the people, not to behave as if the people are just there to vote them into power, whereupon they can behave as they please.

we should not have a situation where on an island of just 45 square miles in size, with a population of 100,000, the majority of the electorate feel completely detached from politics. But we do, because of our current political system.

It's very telling that over the past few years we've heard so much from our senior politicians about the need to modernise the island and bring it into line with this country or that country, architecturally, socially or economically....yet the very engine room of the island, our political system, one of the most undemocratic and out-of-touch in Western Europe, is the single thing they do not at any cost want to see altered to be made more suitable for these modern times.