by Andrew Goddard, Psephizo
The election process for the new General Synod of the Church of England is now well underway with the voting period having opened just over a week ago on Monday 21st September and closing on Monday 12th (postal) or Tuesday 13th October (online). Results will be declared over the rest of that week so that all are declared by Monday 19th. The Church of England website has further details.
The particular features of General Synod elections
Just as elections to the House of Commons are in one sense multiple individual elections in 650 constituencies so elections to General Synod are really multiple individual elections. There are, however, significant differences compared with parliamentary elections.
- Each of the 42 dioceses has 2 distinct elections running (one involving clergy, one involving laity) as does the Channel Islands.
- There are other constituencies and their electorate may be
- in the distinct provinces of York and Canterbury (as with suffragan bishops for 7 seats in the House of Bishops and the election of 5 cathedral deans totalling across both provinces and 3 forces chaplains in Canterbury) or
- nationally across both provinces (as with 4 representing universities and theological education institutions (TEIs) where only for House of Clergy, 3 lay members of the armed forces, and 2 clergy and 2 lay members from religious communities)
- With the exception of the diocese of Sodor and Man all these elect more than one representative with all other dioceses having at least 3 clergy and 3 lay people being elected. Some have many more with largest being 12 clergy and 13 laity in London. The complex process for determining the number of seats is set out in GS 2431 along with figures for each constituency’s number which also appear here in a table which contains other statistical data and can be searched and filtered by various features and links to a table giving all the addresses for each constituency.
- Each diocese also regulates its own election processes and so there is considerable variety.
- Some dioceses will have hustings (in person or on Zoom) where the electorate can ask questions of the candidates, many no longer hold these.
- Some dioceses ask all candidates to submit written answers to a set of questions, most do not.
- Most dioceses permit, some strongly encourage, candidates to use a video to introduce themselves, at least one diocese prohibits this.
- The election is by the Single Transferable Vote. As its name shows this means each voter has a single vote (even though multiple candidates will be elected) which can be transferred to a new candidate when the preferred candidate no longer needs it. It is transferred at its full current value if the preferred candidate has been eliminated and at a reduced value if it has already gone towards electing a candidate. Voters therefore should rank candidates in order of preference to maximise their vote’s power (but to do that they need to know quite a lot about the candidates).
- There is no party system. In a general election each candidate has, although only since 1969, (it was actually explicitly forbidden by law in 1948) been able to describe themselves in up to six words on a ballot paper. For many people this is usually their primary guide faced with a ballot paper and of course in most UK elections they will simply have to express a first preference with “X” not number perhaps dozens of candidates in order of preference. For Synod elections, increasingly there are many elements of a party system developing. In groupings such as The Alliance, Together for the Church of England/Inclusive Church and Save the Parish (and in various sub-groups within each of the first two of these) people are acting collectively in an organised manner to varying degrees in relation these elections in unprecedented ways. However, there is no signalling of these groups and when people come to vote they simply vote for a name. This changing pattern in church politics may well need significant review and perhaps reform in future and could impact the voting dynamics in the new Synod even more than it did in the outgoing Synod.