The new-look voting system for elections to the Legislative Council is to be reviewed.

Chief Minister Howard Quayle admitted he had ’reservations’ about the voting process that allowed MHKs to vote for as many candidates as they wanted - rather than cast as many votes as there are seats.

In last week’s election, in which unprecedentedly five women were elected into the upper house, one MHK - Policy and Reform Minister Chris Thomas - voted for as many as 13 of the 15 candidates.

Speaker Juan Watterson voted for 11 candidates, Dr Alex Allinson nine, and DEFA Minister Geoffrey Boot, Treasury Minister Alfred Cannan and Infrastructure Minister Ray Harmer each voted for eight.

The Chief Minister said: ’I personally had reservations about the voting system.

’I didn’t think it was right that you could vote for more people than you have seats. I was pleasantly surprised that people were all elected at the first vote.’

Mr Quayle voted for four women and one man - Jane Poole-Wilson, Kate Lord-Brennan, Marlene Hendy, Shirley Ellen Corlett and Kevin Cartledge.

He told the Examiner that he had voted on the ability of the individuals rather than their gender.

The House of Keys standing orders committee is to review the election process including how many candidates could be voted for by each MHK.

Speaker Mr Watterson, who voted for 11 candidates in the LegCo election, said the committee would be meeting next week to review the situation and he said Tynwald members, the candidates and the public were welcome to have an input.

He said: ’The process was agreed by the Keys and is a lot stronger than the process we’ve had previously where it has been farcical and gone on for months.

’By giving members more votes, not requiring them to ration their votes, has reduced the likelihood of that farcical situation happening again.’

The election was decided on a single round of voting in which Jane Poole-Wilson topped the poll with 22 votes, Kate Lord-Brennan received 16 votes, Tanya Humbles 15 votes, Marlene Hendy 14 votes and Kerry Sharpe 13 votes.

Mrs Sharpe will serve a two-year term to the end of February 2020, while the others will serve a full five years.