WE had such high hopes, such optimism and such expectations that they might finally be ‘the ones’.

The ones to sort it all out, work together and restore our faith in politicians, in government and in the States of Jersey as a whole.

But just two-and-a-half days into the new House we, the voters who just a month ago secured their £43,000-a-year futures, were brought back to earth with a bump.

It was a reality check really, a simple ‘don’t be so stupid’ kind of reminder that things don’t change overnight.

And before the 16 new States Members could even say ‘present’ for the third time in their current political careers, they had the public very angry indeed.

Not necessarily the newcomers themselves, but the States as a whole. But we will come on to that in a minute.

What annoyed so many people were the spoilt papers in the ministerial elections. And when I say people were annoyed I mean more like they were fuming, outraged and mightily hacked off.

Over the two days it took to elect the nine new ministers who will lead the States departments over the next three years there were three spoilt (invalid) ballot papers.

That’s three people or occasions when someone we pay a pretty damn good wage to decided they would rather not do their job and leave it up to everyone else to make the tough decisions.

Now it may not seem like a lot, but any more than zero is quite frankly unacceptable.

And unfortunately we don’t get to know who those people are, and thus why they did it.

They may say it was an accident, that they made a mistake when writing their chosen candidate’s name on a simple bit of paper.

They may say it was a protest vote against the candidates that they had to choose from or the style of politics they stood for – who knows?

Either way, they got a lot of people very wound up and should have done better.
Let me explain further, because I think it is important that they (the politicians) know how strongly we felt.

Literally minutes after it was announced that there had been a spoilt paper in the Social Security election (ultimately the most controversial result, because there was just one vote in it and it was still at that stage undecided whether the vote would stand or not) I was receiving messages from enraged Islanders over the social networking website Twitter.

They wanted to know who had spoilt their paper, why, and how on earth we could put our faith in politicians who couldn’t even bring themselves to complete the simplest of tasks.

Others sent me emails venting their anger and, dear politicians, if it hasn’t hit home just how angry people were, then just read what this one correspondent, who I am hoping will not mind me sharing their thoughts, had to say, because I think they sums it up pretty well.

‘It is disgraceful that elected candidates resort to “spoiling” their voting papers so that presumably they can claim to not being responsible for electing members in the future,’ the comments read.

‘Those “spoiling” their voting papers should be named and shamed. They do not deserve office. They are elected to make decisions for the good of the Island – not sit on the fence when it comes to voting. They have no place in the House.’

Pretty strong stuff, I think you will agree. And this person was certainly not alone.
These people wanted some accountability, some answers and ultimately, I think, some reassurance that they hadn’t made some terrible mistake when they cast their votes last month.

But unfortunately, and frustratingly, I couldn’t give them any of those things because the votes were conducted in secret.

The situation therefore leads me to question if the voting should have been opened up, as happened with the election of a Chief Minister.

Yes, it would allow us to see who voted for whom, and may put people off spoiling their vote in a cowardly manner.

But would it also be divisive? We only have to return to the debate about an open ballot for Chief Minister to see that many politicians feel that it would be. Their arguments are that it would cause some Members to be ‘shunned’ by others who didn’t vote for them and ultimately would do more harm than good.

But perhaps it is time that the debate did take place, although this time in the context of all elections within the House.

After all, we voted those people in there to make decisions on our behalf, so how can we hold them accountable if we don’t know who has done what?

And what kind of example does it set to the new Members of the House who made their decisions last week, however difficult they may have been for a political newcomer, in good faith?

It wasn’t a good start for the new Assembly, and certainly not one talking of greater accountability, more openness, greater transparency and better communication.

It also overshadowed what was, in the end, a very interesting and some would say promising two days.

But, as with lots of things that happen within our States Chamber the spoilt papers were the act of a few, perhaps even only a couple.

The saying goes ‘don’t tar them all with the same brush’, but unfortunately I don’t think it applies in politics.

If one politician does something that annoys us we all too often blame all of them as a collective.

That is something that I think we (the public) and they (the politicians) need to remember as this new House begins to tackle the real work ahead.

And if there are any politicians out there who did knowingly spoil their papers last week and would care to explain themselves to the electorate, then you know where I am.