VOTING TO-DAY

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26515, 1 September 1951, Page 6

VOTING TO-DAY

171 Candidates Tor 80 Seats

30TH parliament

Throughout New Zealand to-day 1,206,460 persons are entitled to go to polling places and cast their votes to decide the membership of New Zealand’s thirtieth Parliament. Facing the electors for the 80 seats in the House of Representatives will be 171 candidates—l6l of them for the 76 European seats and 10 for the four Maori seats. The number of candidates is one of the smallest for a New Zealand election. In 1949, the year of the last General Election, there were 178 aspirants for the 76 European seats and 18 for the Maori electorate. On this occasion all but 10 of the seats will be fought between the two main parties (National and Labour). In nine of the seats the contest will be three-cornered and in one, Western Maori, which at the last election had 10 candidates, there are four candidates. For the first time Maori voters will "o to the polls on the same day as Europeans, though they must vote at special polling places. In the past the election for the Maori seats has been held a day earlier than that for the Eurobean seats.

Polling places throughout Canterbury- and the West Coast have been advertised in "The Press.” All booths will open at 9 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. and the first progress returns will be broadcast shortly after the closing time. So that listeners can follow the progress of the returns. "The Press” yesterday printed a page listing the candidates.

In Christchurch the voting will be simple. Electors will have one voting paper and all they will have to do is to strike off one of the two names on it, the name they strike off being the candidate for whom they do. not wish to vote. No vote on the national licensing i c sue is being held. All licensed premises will be closed from noon until 7 p.m. and not even guests can be served until after the polling booths have been closed. Apart from the normal method of voting at the booths, three other forms of casting a vote are available—absentee voting, declaration votes and postal votes. Absentee votes can be cast by a registered elector who is away from his own electorate. Declaration votes can be cast by any elector who for any one of a number of specified reasons is not on the roll. Postal, votes can be exercised by electors who through illness and infirmity cannot go to a polling place. Electorate committees of both the main parties have fleets of cars available to take people to the polls and they arrange transport for sick voters.