Earlier this month, in a boardroom at the Parliamentary Registry on Wesley Street in Hamilton, a group of local politicians and two overseas visitors sat poring over a large map of Bermuda, discussing how best to divide this tiny island into constituencies containing roughly equal numbers of voters.

And though their work mainly involved mathematics and geography, at the heart of it lay what one participant described as the “most important right” in any democracy: the right to exercise a vote and for that vote to be equal to all other votes.

The Boundaries Commission was convened last November with the aim of producing a report on the electoral map well before the next General Election and, in April, over the course of a week, it began deciding whether any boundary changes would be necessary.

The commission’s constitutional remit doesn’t necessarily attract wide-scale interest from the electorate — a recent public meeting at a school attracted just ten or 11 people — but it is vital in ensuring equality of voting in Bermuda, a country where for so long and until relatively recently there was huge inequality along racial and class lines.

Shadow Attorney-General Michael Scott, who sits on the commission with fellow Opposition MP Jamahl Simmons and government members Mark Pettingill and Sylvan Richards, explained: “The history of the franchise in this country is the reason it’s so important. We’ve come from the dreary days or dark days of the land vote; we’ve come from the days when boundaries or constituencies were very unequal.

“The examples that come to mind are where Paget had 600 voters per election and Sandys may have had some 2,000 voters in the constituency.”

He said allegations of gerrymandering — the manipulation of boundaries to favour one group of people in elections — were long part of the island’s narrative, so it was imperative to make “equal votes of equal value a gold standard in the country”.

“I think we’ve come a great, good distance in achieving that with these exercises,” he added.

The constitution ensures the commission cannot take any account of the racial distribution of voters and may ignore parish boundaries if necessary.

It is bipartisan, with equal numbers of MPs from both parties, and is chaired by Francis Alexis, a QC from Grenada. David Jenkins, the Chief Justice of Prince Edward Island in Canada, is also a member and served on the last commission.

Dr Alexis said the commission took the number of eligible voters across the country — both registered to vote and not registered — and divided it by the constituencies, coming up with a mean number of voters per constituency.

The ideal is to get as close to the mean in each constituency as possible; the commission is still deciding how far a deviation from that number is acceptable.

“In the real world, there will be some constituencies having less than the mean and others having more than the mean,” said Dr Alexis. “All week we have been talking about what that deviation should be.

“We are narrowing it down [and] are getting to the point where we can, with confidence, say what the deviation from the mean is to be tolerated as.”

Mr Justice Jenkins said the question of what amounted to an unacceptable deviation from the mean — i.e. “the point at which your vote is not worth as much as mine or mine not worth as much as yours” — raised legal, moral and constitutional questions.

“In a democracy the right to exercise your franchise is the most important right there is and your constitution, like any constitution that I would be familiar with in a western democracy, contemplates equality of voting,” he said.

Kevin Mayall, a specialist in geographic information systems and analysis, is the consultant to the commission and he has advised members that it will be hard to get closer than within five per cent of the mean. Right now, a draft map of the present boundaries shows that 11 of the 36 constituencies fall outside five per cent of the mean and three — St George’s South (Constituency 4), Paget East (22) and Sandys South (33) — fall outside ten per cent.

“We’ve found that some constituencies fall outside the 10 per cent range; in other words, they have more than 110 per cent of the mean,” said Mr Justice Jenkins, “As a starting point, we are saying that those should be brought in and then we work down to what is reasonably practicable. How close to equality can you get?

“It’s a lot of trial and error. There’s a trade-off of [between] what causes the least disruption for voters and what creates the most precision for equality ... we try to not overdo the disruption.”

For those around the table, the importance of their work cannot be overstated.

Backbencher Mr Pettingill said: “The efforts of the committee are about finding a solution for having the fairest and most just boundary divisions. In truth it really is a case of making the math work.

“I have enjoyed working with all of the members in this important exercise.”

Mr Simmons, Shadow Minister of Tourism and Economic Development, said: “It’s not a matter of us simply deciding how we are going to carve up the island but really trying to come up with an outcome of equal vote of equal value that benefits the country long after we are gone.

“It’s a very monumental responsibility when you look back at the members who’ve sat on previous commissions — sterling, strong members on both sides.

“It is important, we believe, in terms of facilitating democracy, that we work together and understand our remit and that we put Bermuda above all other considerations.”

View the draft map at www.elections.gov.bm. Public meetings to discuss the boundaries will be held on September 12, 13 and 14 this year and anyone with concerns or suggestions about potential changes can e-mail them to pro@gov.bm