Ms Maura McMahon:

As a Green Party we are 40 years young and as such the larger parties have an advantage, and that extends outside the electoral cycle, which I know has been raised previously with the committee. Not to discount the importance and critical nature of competitive advantage, but it must be done on a level playing field. This goes beyond the party. It is about the party, the candidate and the electorate. In speaking about resourcing, off the top of my head I am thinking about resourcing for adverts that is costing in content creation as well as mobilisation, staffing and how parties are able to mobilise staff to access electoral data and help support people to access voting. Tech-savvy is about staffing and having the money to be able to afford to buy people with particular skill sets and the ability to provide plain language materials for the electorate such that you can engage people in a naturally transparent and accessible way. Again, this is a serious issue that can be addressed in a meaningful way by the electoral commission and give voters more sense of agency. The more complicated things are, the less people feel that their voice makes a difference in politics. Perhaps, that is part of the reason we are seeing declining numbers across all areas of the island in terms of voter turnout.