MARKING BALLOT PAPERS.

Auckland Star, Issue 111, 13 May 1935, Page 6

MARKING BALLOT PAPERS.

I like the idea of "31.," who suggests that a voter should put a "tick" for those for whom he wishes to vote, instead of a "cross." A tick is always positive, signifying agreement, whereas a cross is negative, implying an error, so it goes against the grain to put a cross alongside the names we favour. I marked my own papers -by "ticking off" the names I favoured, and then crossing out the names I rejected, a method that will be accepted by every returning officer in the Dominion, regardless of the instructions on the ballot papers, for the Acts of 192.3 and 1926 provide that "no voting paper shall be rejected as informal that clearly indicates the candidate or candidates for whom the voter intended to vote, whether such indication is made in the manner prescribed by this section or otherwise," and nothing could be clearer to the counters or scrutineers than my method, whether the instructions were the city way.or the Takapuna and Mount Eden way. At the booth where I officiated fully 20 per cent of the voters returned to the table from their cubicle to ask whether they had to vote according to what the newspapers said, a cross in favour, or according to what the ballot papers said, striking out the names to reject, and I had to tell them to follow the latter instructions, although I knew that it did not make the slightest difference, and Ah'at in another respect most of the ballot papers were actually incorrect, in that if a voter adopted one of the options incorrectly given his vote would he informal. DEPUTY RETURNING OFFICER.