ELECTORAL ROLLS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 164, 6 October 1941, Page 5

ELECTORAL ROLLS

ENROLMENTS INCREASE

28 TONS OF PAPER NEEDED

Of the three electorates in the Rotorua and Bay of Plenty districts, Rotorua and Tauranga both show increases in the number of names in the main roll compared with 1938, the only one with a decrease being Bay of Plenty.

Number of electors enrolled in thp three electorates with the number in 1938 shown in parentheses is as follows: Rotorua 9491 (9379); Tauranga 11,050 (10,024); Bay of Plenty 9002 (9326). The total electors including those on the supplementary rolls for the last elections were: Rotorua 12,596', Tauranga 12,333, Bay of Plenty 11,359.

Printing of the main rolls is now proceeding throughout the Dominion, some idea of the magnitude of the task being gained from the fact that for the Rotorua electorate about 1000 copies are being prepared, and that for the whole of the Dominion over 28 tons of paper will be re' quired. Common Mistakes For members of the staff of the registrar of electors, the job of attending to a seemingly endless stream of applicants for enrolment on the Parliamentary electoral rolls was not without its humour. Errors and omissions were frequent in application forms, and not infrequently members of the electoral staff had to come to the assistance of a person Glling in the form.

Actually it was not a complex form to complete, and one of the main reasons for errors appeared to be the failure of applicants to read the directions carefuPy before filling them in. One of the most common mistakes was to neglect to supply information as to whether or not the applicant has lived in New Zealand for 12 months and in the electoral district for three months immediately before making application for enrolment. It is necessary for applicants to satisfy the registrar that they have fulfilled these requirements before they can be included on the roll.

Many women gave their occupation instead of their status—spinster, married or widow. There was one instance of a farm hand who had returned a form with his occupation stated as a "married couple." Some applicants struck out all questions, signed the form and sent it in. Some forms were signed by persons who aiv". not entitled to attest., There were also instances where husband-nnd-wife applicants witnessed the signatures of each other, a course which is not permissable except where the husband's name was already on the roll.