RATHER like the electors themselves – should island-wide voting be accepted – the States will be faced with an embarrassment of options when they convene at the end of the month.

For instead of a firm, do-or-die proposal, the States Assembly and Constitution Committee is offering deputies a menu with four choices.

They are the same options as voted on by almost 4,000 households in a postal poll which Sacc has taken to be a definitive public vote in favour of island-wide voting.

If that is so, islanders should beware what they wish for.

The logistics of an island-wide vote are wholly different to the current, parish-based system.

Under one option, there is the potential for almost 600,000 votes to be cast – a six-fold increase on the 2008 election. Unless the island wants an army of volunteers locked in Beau Sejour hall for a week there will have to be electronic voting.

Cost? Up to £25,000 each election.

With up to 90 candidates, the days of candidates ‘walking the parish’ posting manifestos and meeting their parishioners will go, to be replaced by a single manifesto newspaper.

Potentially each candidate could pay up to £625 for that privilege.

Those 90 candidates (or 65, or 55, depending on the option chosen) could never gather together in one room to air their views so the traditional hustings would be dead, replaced by ‘meet the potential deputy’ surgeries where candidates wander the room talking to voters.

That’s fine for those with the gumption to go up to 40 or so strangers and grill them with questions. Not so great for those more passive in their politics.

And there is no doubt that it is a system which will favour the established politicians. The astonishing success of Matt Fallaize – ironically, a Sacc member – in the 2008 Vale election was based partly around his online campaigning but mostly on his walking the parish and his strong hustings performance.

How will the young States members of the future break in and make themselves stand out among 89 other candidates, some of whom have been in politics for years?