ELECTION OFFENCE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 243, 27 July 1935, Page 7

ELECTION OFFENCE

INTERFERENCE WITH VOTERS.

ONE MAN CONVICTED. (Per Press Association). AUCKLAND, July 26. Judgment was given to-day in two of the five charges heard on July 12 of “interfering with electors while on the way to an election booth, with the intention of influencing their vote.” They resulted from a, distribution of cards, bearing the names of municipal candidates, outside the booths on the day of the poll. The Magistrate (Mr W. R. McKean) convicted one man without imposing a penalty, and dismissed the other chargje. The man convicted had on the table copies of the electoral rolls and bundles of printed cards. He would ask intending voters whether they had their roll number, and if they had not he would look up the number, write it on a slip of paper, and hand it to the elector, together with a printed card containing the names -of the candidates. The man not convicted merely wrote the elector’s roll number on a slip of paper, and did not also' supply the elector with a card unless the elector asked for one. The Magistrate said there was considerable difference between seeking advice and having it thrust on one. _ It was unsolicited advice from which, according to Mr Justice Blair’s judgment in 1933, the elector was to be freed.