Election maps change within districts
(CNS): The 2023 Electoral Boundary Commission has unveiled its proposed new election maps impacting 15 constituencies, including the Sister Islands, where the dividing line on Cayman Brac has been moved slightly. But the commissioners have not crossed district boundary lines or merged East End and North Side, leaving Bodden Town with four supersized constituencies.
The new electoral landscape has been revealed just as the new register of electors has seen voter numbers increase slightly to 23,569 from 23,496 in April. But the Elections Office estimates there are at least 5,500 people with the right to vote who have not registered, and they have also been taken into consideration during the review of the electoral boundaries. The maps are now available on the Elections Office website. They show new seats within the districts, which are now numbered rather than named for their geographical locations.
For example, Newlands, which is Premier Wayne Panton’s constituency, will become Bodden Town 1; Sir Alden McLaughlin’s Red Bay constituency will be renamed George Town 7; and West Bay West, currently held by McKeeva Bush, will become West Bay 2.
During their first public meeting in West Bay on Tuesday, the commissioners said that they had stuck to the traditional boundaries and redrawn the maps within them to make each constituency within those districts more equal. But this means that the four Bodden Town constituencies will have many more voters — those already registered plus people entitled to register before the next election in 2025 — than any others.
Savannah, renamed Bodden Town 1, could become Cayman’s most populated constituency under the new proposals if all of its eligible residents sign on to the electoral roll before the national ballot. But all four of the Bodden Town seats could have more than or close to 2,000 voters by the time of the next general election.
This will mean these constituencies will each be more than 22% more than the average size for the country, with around 500 more voters in each constituency when compared to George Town.
EBC Chairperson Dr Lisa Handley and her fellow commissioners, local attorneys Steve McField and Adriannie Webb, are not recommending adding a constituency but have said it will need to be considered in future. They warned that the new districts fall foul of international standards in terms of disparity in numbers, and this will be raised by future election observer missions.
The EBC also noted that this current review and the original work in 2015 to draw up Cayman’s first electoral map indicated that no one wants East End and North Side to merge. Therefore, these two constituencies need to be protected in the Constitution, as is the case for the Sister Islands, which are guaranteed two seats, despite their very small numbers, they said.
The EBC’s recommendations are made to the government via the Governor’s office, and the new maps are not yet set in stone, so there is still time for the public to offer feedback on the proposals. If accepted, some voters in West Bay South (which would be WB4) will find themselves voting at the next election in West Bay Central (WB3), while voters in George Town East (GT5) have been moved into George Town Central (GT2).
The boundaries have been redrawn to even out the numbers across the districts based on headcount and no other considerations. For example, the largest of the seven constituencies across George Town has just 60 more potential new voters than the smallest.
While the broader map reflects considerable differences in constituency size from district to district, with over 8,000 potential voters in Bodden Town and less than 1,800 combined in North Side and East End, the number of voters are at least more equal within the three major districts.
See the EBC presentation and full boundary maps on the Elections Office website.
- Fascinated
- Happy
- Sad
- Angry
- Bored
- Afraid
The Political SMoke Screen continues.
we do NOT want or need more MPs or constituencies.
We Need overall district voting as we once had,
PLUS another simultaneous vote for CABINET!!
And we need to set their Salaries and benefits!
East End and North Side become one electoral district. Cayman Brac and Little Cayman become one electoral district. MPs reduced from 19 to 17. That would be a good start.
East Brac Little Side should be one constituency.
You are on a very slippery slope because the tactic of Gerrymandering by the EBC (political appointees)is when a political group tries to change a voting district to create a result that helps them or hurts the group who is against them. Many bad decisions have been made in the name of equity!!
Wow, MPs having to represent up to 2000 people ! How on earth will they manage ? Simple answer, ignore them all and do your own thing once elected, just like any past MPs. So it doesn’t matter how many voters are in any particular district, and therefore this was an exercise in futility.
Nothing really matters until the quality of the candidates improves. As the political gene pool is so low among Caymanians I am not very hopeful.
The more amazing statistic is we have the highest paid representatives of any western democracy taking into account that they pay no income tax.
INCREDIBLE. Amazing living in a place with so much money floating around.
A wonderful gravy train to be on if one can get on it.
The answer is to treat the Cross-Island Road as the boundary, and add every property on the East of it to the East End Constituency (rather than keeping them in North Side). Then add some of Bodden Town East to North Side – and the keep slicing West in 1,600 ish slices. There will need to be a new constituency, effectively between George Town North, and West Bay South.
Also extend Prospect further into Savannah.
+ Get rid of single seat constituencies.
+ Get rid of first past the post/winner take all/Westminster style elections – this promotes “West Kingston” type poli-tricks.
+ Bring back multi-seat constituencies.
+ Bring in a mixture of local/district 3, 4 and 5 seater constituencies coupled with one large islands’s wide constituency with 3 seats. We should be allowed to vote in our local/district and/or islands’ wide constituency
+ Bring in proportional representation.
What we have now promotes chaos, short-termism and self-aggrandisement.
Cayman politics is ridiculous. Who is benefitting from this?
so if we tie the contitution to world standards
29156 voters.
smallest is 575 by constitution
29156/575 = 50.7
so to meet international standards we need a little less than 50 MPs
we are going to need a bigger trough or we neef a
referendum to change the constitution unless we are happy being a bannana republic with Mickey Mouse watches.
I wouldn’t say “No one” wants EE and NS to be combined. I do.
NS, EE, Brac East and West should combined into one suburban Cayman voter block. A 4:1 trade most voters could their heads around, but the parties and PPMs bought EBC won’t allow it.
“Nobody wants NS and Eae merged?” How about “Everyone but them wants them merged.” It’s everyone else who is getting screwed.
What a joke. The whole voting system is a shambles.
And anyone who wants to run must be able to colour inside the lines and do joined-up writing. That would make sure half of the current lot can’t get back in. Right Jon Jon?!
4.55 How rude and disrespectful. Obviously written by a bigot who thinks all locals are dumb.
No, just JonJon
Time for the UK and the Governor to overrule the politicians, change the constitution and even out the districts. It will never be fair otherwise.
Please father in London save us from this madness.
to 4.40 How democratic..take away the people’s right to vote and replace it with a dictatorship.
Always so many things wrong, yet there is NEVER a resolution.
One person. One vote.
Not one person in a small constituency is equal to 1.5 to 2 times another citizen living in a large constituency.
This should be illegal as it is not even close to equal representation.
We have a North side constituency with 800 voters and an East End constituency with 700 voters, each with a Member of Parliament on $150,00 a year. In the UK an MP earns 86,000 GBP a year with an average constituency size of 56,000.
What rationale can there possibly be for not merging these two seats? How can Cayman’s politicians ever hope to be taken seriously?
There are high schools with more enrolled students than the districts of Brac East and West.
Total madness. Look at the size of this tiny Island!
Direct rule now.
Direct rule now and send in UK military police units with armored vehicles and police and detectives to stomp this crime out.
3 different robberies on a Thursday night and a police chase in the daytime?!
We are halting dining out or shoppinf at night now because eventually these criminals will injure or kill someone and the act after the event RCIPS and quick release court system is an absolute mess!
Mrs. Governor, it is time to draw a line in the sand.
If you are so desperate for direct rule then move back to the UK. That way you can have the military in armored vehicles patrolling the streets without having to wait or spend all that money to bring them across the Atlantic.
If the map lines are truly being guided by constituent populations, then there are 3-4 dictricts that should be properly amalgamated into one MP “job”. But this is not the EBC recommendation, because of party corruption.
For comps: Canada has 338 electoral districts called ridings, where an MP is elected and sent to Parliament Hill in Ottawa. The smallest riding is Avalon in Newfoundland/Labrador representing only 87,191 voters, the largest, Edmonton-Wetaskiwin with 209,431, with average population of each riding being 108,482 (back in 2016). Canada has a target of 116,000 per riding to merit the full-time payroll where MPs are required to show up and do some work. Versus only 23,569 registered voters (July 1, 2023) in the Cayman Islands, a quarter of the size of a single riding in Canada. The smallest district, Cayman Brac East, represents just 457 voters. East End, Brac, and Little should have one MP max.
More importantly: the voters of Cayman need to petition to amend the Elections Law to disqualify those with past/current criminal and dishonesty records, and apply some educational and experience standards so that there are MPs capable of making decisions for more than one person.
“They warned that the new districts fall foul of international standards in terms of disparity in numbers..”
Er, wasn’t that what they were supposed to fix (SMFH) 🙁
BT1; GT7; WB2?? What the hell, is this a kindergarten counting exercise? Can’t they be more creative? Hope SMB is it’s own constituency!!
Seriously, why the name change?! The previous geographical names made way more sense.
Must be new here. Caymanians love looking busy and posing for photos to prove it.
There should never be any thought of ADDING a constituency. Approximately 25K voters with 19 representatives is beyond enough.
If just half of them actually represented, that would be more than enough.
Sham exercise.
Expect buffoonery and you will never be disappointed.