VOTING RIGHTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 118, 21 May 1931, Page 8

VOTING RIGHTS.

POSTAL AND ABSENTEE. EARLY APPLICATION ADVISED. It does not appear to be generally known that at a Parliamentary by-elec-tion an absent voter may vote at any post office in New Zealand. All that he has to do is go to a post office and fill in an application form for a ballot paper and sign the declaration included in that form. Then there is postal voting, which is quite distinct from the procedure affecting absent voters. An elector who will on polling day be absent from New Zealand, or will not, throughout the hours of polling, be within five miles of a post office, or will be travelling under conditions which preclude him from attending at any post office to vote, or is ill or infirm, or is a lighthouse keeper or a member of his staff, may vote by post.

As all applications for postal vote certificates and ballot papers have to be referred to the registrar of electors for verification, it is necessary that, in order to take full advantage of this provision, immediate application be made to the returning officer, Mr. R. A. E. Enting, room 21a. Government Buildings, Customs Street, Auckland. Upon receipt of the vote certificate and ballot paper, the elector should exercise his vote at once and return the documents to the returning officer, so as to reach him not later than 7 p.m. on Wednesday next, the day of the poll. Any postal votes received after that hour will be informal.