CANDIDATES AND VOTERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 224, 22 September 1938, Page 10

CANDIDATES AND VOTERS.

The lilt published in the "SUr" yesterday-of flection candidates already nominated give* a satisfactory ' indication that then will be much leas vote-splitting this year than there was in 1935. There" are, to date, only about fifteen contests in which there will be more than two candidates; in 1935, in contrast, there were only fifteen "straight-out" contests. The vote-splitting then, plus the failure of many electors to rote, resulted in only 25 out of. 78 European members polling more than half of the number of enrolled voters. Obviously, if the next Parliament is to be even roughly representative of opinion in the country (and under the present electoral system that is always unlikely), the task of political parties and their active supporters consists not only in averting triangular contests wherever possible, but in inducing all the enrolled voters to exercise their voting privilege. In 1935 there were 85,000 who did not do so. Allowing for the probability that some of these nonvoters were only names on the rolls, it is clear-that there was a sufficient number of them for their Votes to have been decisive in some electorates. And if they can be shaken out of their indifference their votes may be decisive this time.