The Guernsey Myth Machine

I see our new lords and masters are cranking up the old Guernsey Myth Machine and congratulating themselves on a record response from the Island's electorate.
 
You remember that machine. It works on the basis that if you tell it loud enough and long enough then it’s got to be true.
 
Like the one about how fantastic our education system was and all those on budget and on time stories and well, however many suchlike you can name.
 
Anyway, to return to this election and that record response from such an engaged electorate.
 
Is this the same Island where about only 39% of those entitled to vote actually bothered to register?
 
And even from such a miserable percentage, only about 70-80% turned out on the day to tick the boxes.
 
69% of those eligible voted with their feet and decided not to participate.
 
Hardly a ringing endorsement of the democratic process is it?
 
If those figures don’t shock you then think about that lucky deputy who got in by the skin of his teeth even though he polled less votes than some candidates who failed to get in from other voting districts.
 
The lowest polling successful candidate in this year’s elections got 695 votes out of 1,958 people who voted in that area rather than the 2,976 people on that electoral roll. That’s a popularity rating of 35% of actual voters or 23% of registered voters.
 
Here’s where it gets a bit vague.
 
Assuming an even spread of apathy across the island, the potential voting base for this deputy was actually 7,630 people which reduces his popularity rating to only 9.1%!
 
Less than 10% of those eligible to vote in that area wanted this person in the States. Or to put it another way, over 90% of the electorate did not want this candidate!
 
You can see why the old myth machine needed a good cranking can’t you.