Election boundaries

Section 89 of the Constitution provides that the boundaries of electoral districts shall:

(a) take no account of the racial distribution of electors within the Cayman Islands;

(b) take into account the natural boundaries within the Cayman Islands;

(c) have regard to existing electoral districts; and

(d) subject to the foregoing provisions of this subsection, ensure that—

(i) so far as reasonably practicable, across all electoral districts there will be an equal

ratio between the number of elected members of the Legislative Assembly

representing each electoral district and the number of persons qualified to be

registered as electors under section 90 in that district; but

(ii) Cayman Brac and Little Cayman shall (between these two islands) at all times return

at least two members to the Legislative Assembly.

Notice that the equal ratio is only "so far as reasonably practicable" and is subject to the other considerations. Based on those criteria the Electoral Boundaries Commission have drawn boundaries in the event we select single member constituencies so that EE and NS will continue to be electoral districts.  You will note that CB and LC are indeed guaranteed at least two MLAs.   This is due to their remoteness from the seat of government and they are, after all more than a mere district but are two-thirds of the three Cayman Islands.

EE and NS each have almost 600 voters. The average number of voters per MLA is 834, i.e. they have some 28% less voters than the average. Similarly, CB/LC has almost 1000 voters and will return two MLAs. On the other side of the coin using only the number of voters GT would actually be entitled to 7 MLAs. Clearly this would create a gross imbalance in favour of GT which would control more than 1/3 of the membership of the LA.   

In other democratic countries the number of voters in each single member constituency does vary, sometimes considerably.  That is true in the U.S., the U.K. and throughout the British Commonwealth. For example, the UK Parliamentary constituency of Aberconwy in Wales has 45,000 voters while the constituency of Bury St. Edmunds in England has 86,000 voters - a 91% difference.See Wikipedia UK Parliament constituencies. 

In no country is there an absolute rule that there must in every case be an exact (or even approximate) number of voters in each constituency regardless of any other consideration although that is always an important factor. Obviously even if we were to establish an exact number of voters per district that distribution of voters could easily change by the next election. Clearly, it would impractical to have re-districting for every election and to that extent there would always be some variation.     

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