Voting for the Church of England General Synod has started. Voting closes on or about Friday 8 October. The exact date varies from diocese to diocese, so if you are a voter who leaves things to the last minute be sure to check the closing date in your diocese.
All candidates are entitled to have an election address sent to each elector at the diocese’s expense. Some of these addresses are available online, and the General Synod Blog has published this list: Online Election General Synod Addresses/Statements. If you know of any more do add it as a comment to that list.
I have prepared a list showing the number of candidates in each constituency, where I know them, and in due course I will publish the names of successful candidates.
Candidates for the 2010 Election
General Synod List of members
If you have any updates and/or corrections to either of these lists please send them to the email address given at the head of each list.
This next General Synod could be an agency of real Reform within the Church of England, OR, it could seal the fate of collegial relationships with TEC, the Anglican Church of Canada, and all other progressive Anglican Churches throughout the Communion. For C. of E. Diocese to allow a new G.S. to be stacked with conservatives could put the Communion back thirty years at least.
Fr. Ron, it’s not for the dioceses to “allow” a new General Synod to be stacked with conservatives. The Houses of Clergy and Laity of the Diocesan Synods are not the electorate. The electorate are the members of the respective houses of the *Deanery* Synods and the election procedure is by Single Transferable Vote. This actually makes it quite difficult to “stack” the General Synod with any grouping, TBTG. As an aside, I do feel sorry for lay electors in London who have 52 candidate to decide among for ten places. At least I only have to decide between ten… Read more »
Thanks, RPNewark for your information. the idea of Deanery Synods does seem to provide just one more opportunity for jerrymandering.
Well, actually not so, Fr Ron, as in most, if not all, dioceses, the elections to general synod are held as a diocesan-wide event. All the members of each of the deanery synods vote in the same pool, for the entire diocesan-wide slate of candidates. Thus in St Albans this time, there are 15 candidates for 6 places in the House of Laity. All the DS lay members across the diocese have the same ballot paper. And, as noted, the election is by STV, so the voters have to rank all the candidates in order, 1,2,3… 15. The real problem… Read more »
The fundamental problem with the elections to General Synod is that the electorate, for the house of laity, are the elected members of the Deanery Synods. We all know the definition of a a Deanery Synod meeting to be “a group of people waiting to go home”. It is an “electoral college” in which the members from a particular parish may or may not represent the variety of opinion of people on the electoral roll of their parish. Indeed, in my 20 years of experience in these matters, it is precisely the more politically motivated who stand for election. Every… Read more »
Simon, what is the percentage of the electorate who actually vote? When I was in a parish I always did , and urged my deanery synod reps to vote…but I have been told a suprising number of electors dont actually bother to vote. I find that extraordinary. Do we know if it is true?
Perry
We published an analysis of the voting turnout in 2005. You can find it here:
http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/001387.html
Thanks Peter…but how depressing. I would have hoped for percentage figures in the 90%..after all how long does it take to vote! the H of Laity figures are appalling..yet the women Bishops legislation may well be scuppered in the H of Laity!