Updated Policy Brief on 2026 Election published

The Policy Centre has released an updated version of its Policy Brief 2026 General Election. This updated Brief reflects the legislative changes enacted following the decision to reinstate senators. While these changes have been approved by the States Assembly, they have not yet been incorporated into the published substantive legislation.

Following is a summary of the Brief.

The 2026 General Election will be held on Sunday, 7 June 2026. Voters across the island will elect 12 parish constables, 9 senators, and 26 deputies. Each voter will be entitled to cast between 12 and 14 votes.

The conduct of elections in Jersey is governed by the Elections (Jersey) Law 2002 and the Connétables (Jersey) Law 2008. Electoral expenditure is regulated by the Public Elections (Expenditure and Donations) (Jersey) Law 2014.

Jersey has historically experienced a low level of election turnout, with only 41.7% of eligible voters participating in the 2022 election. To address this, two key initiatives have been introduced for the 2026 election: firstly, the election will be held on a Sunday; secondly, automatic voter registration is being implemented. The latter initiative is expected to increase both the size of the electorate and the number of people voting, though it will likely reduce the published turnout percentage.

Jersey’s parliamentary system is distinctive for its inclusion of three different categories of members within a single chamber.

Constables hold significant responsibilities within their respective parishes, in addition to their duties in the States Assembly. It is not uncommon for constable elections to be uncontested. In such cases, electors are given the option to vote for “none of the above”. In the 2022 election, eight constable elections offered this choice to voters.

The nine senators will be elected using the “first-past-the-post” electoral system. This system tends to encourage electors to “plump” for their favoured candidates. In the 2018 senatorial election, on average, voters used 5.7 of their eight available votes.

To make room for the nine senators, the number of deputy positions has been reduced from 37 to 28. This reduction was achieved by removing one deputy position from each electoral district. These changes have implications for the fairness of the electoral system, with Grouville/St Martin in particular becoming significantly under-represented as a result.

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