Informal Votes.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17749, 28 April 1923, Page 12

Informal Votes.

One of the most striking features of the polling on Thursday was the abnormally large number of informal votes. . Every election, local or general, reveals the existence of voters who do not merely make mistakes such as careless or flurried people might make, but who make mistakes of a kind which nobody would have thought possible. The errors on Thursday, however, far exceeded what might be allowed for the confusion of such voters as these. It may be urged that a voter who is unable to follow the directions clearly printed on a ballot-paper is one whose judgment and mentality are so poor that nothing is lost by the invalidation of his vote. This is quite a mistake, for a man may be thoroughly competent to form a sfiund opinion upon the matter upou which he votes, and yet become flurried in the voting booth. There was enough to flurry him on Thursday. He was asked to vote oa four different matters, or on five if he Was a, ratepayer. This in itself was likely to confuse many people who would deal with one or even two ballot papers with perfect ease. But there were three distinct methods of Having struggled with the task of marking his preferences on three separate papers, he found himself obliged to strike out one of two lines on a fourth, and to mark a cross in one of two spaces on a fifth. It is obviously very undesirable that there should be bo many informal votes as were registered on Thursday, and as obviously necessary that steps should be taken to avoid the causes of confusion in future. If considerations of expense require that the various local elections, sometimes complicated by the addition of loan proposals, should be held on one day, then some uniform method of marking the various papers should be adopted. We do not know whether tliere exists a conclusive body of evidence, based upon the experience of local and general polls, concerning tho relative. merits of the two opposite methods of registering a, vote—the affirmative method of marking the favoured name or proposal with a cross, or the negative method of striking out the. undesired name or proposal. But we should say that tho affirmative method is much the less likely to make for confusion. Eveu experienced voters have felt a slight confusion' of mind when, wishing to vote for the Concert Chamber proposal, they strike out the line, "I vote "against the proposal." This is easily to be understood, because the act involves a double negative: I am against the idea of being against the loan. Surely the simple affirmative cross opposite tho line indicating the voter's wish is a far simpler thing. And, in addition to such a reform, the P.E. syßtem ought to go. It is undesirable in itself, and it obviously causes much confusion and disfranchises a large number of electors. There is no excuse for the perpetuation of the confusing methods which led to such widespread disfranchisement on Thursday.