Irregularity Alleged In Local Option Poll

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28451, 4 December 1957, Page 14

Irregularity Alleged In Local Option Poll

(IVeio Zealand Press Association J DUNEDIN. December 3. Some electors entitled to vote on the local option issue in Oamaru are said to have been denied papers, and others not entitled, to papers to have received them. It is believed that at least some of the claims can be substantiated. The Licensing Act, 1908, provides where any 50 electors are dissatisfied with the result of any licensing poll they may. within 14 days of the official result being posted, file a petition with the Magistrate’s Court demanding an inquiry into the conduct of the poll. This would be conducted by a court of three magistrates with power to declare- the poll- void., if, in its opinion, some irregularity materially affected the result of the poll.

One elector. living in the Otago Central electorate, voted at a country booth. A request for a voting paper on the local option poll was refused, it is said on the ground that his name in the roll was not marked with an asterisk. The second instance concerned a man and his wife Jiving in the no-licence area. They called at a booth south of Dunedin requesting papers on the local issue. These were denied them on the alleged ground that they lived in the Otago Central electorate—a “wet” area—although their names were clearly marked as entitling them to vote on the issue. Inquiries today confirmed that no-one asking for a voting paper should have been defied it, and that this instruction had been issued to polling clerks. The procedure, if a name was not on the roll, or not marked by an asterisk, was to issue a declaration vote. Another anomaly, this time concerning an elector on the Southern Maori roll, was reported. In this case the elector voted, and on returning home remembered that she had not received a paper on the local option issue. She returned to the booth, • and was subsequently issued with ■the paper.

Investigations revealed that -the names of electors on the Southern Maori roll, living in a no-licence district, were not marked as being entitled to vote on the local option question. They would,, however, receive a paper on request.

A deputy-returning officer in one district, formerly in the old Oamaru electorate, with a knowledge of the local area, refused papers to a voter whose name in the roll had an asterisk beside it because he knew the man was not entitled to vote on the issue.- He also gave papers, it is said, to a man he knew was entitled to vote but whose name did not carry an asterisk on the rolls.

Rumour also had it that a large number of electors in and around Enneld, who were not entitled to vote, had received papers. This rumour is without foundation, but it has been disclosed that on the main Otago Central roll, one former elector of Enfield, now resident in Oamaru. pointed, out ’ the error and named at least 40 who were not entitled to vote.

With the change in electoral boundaries, the Oamaru licensing boundaries. Vzhich were not affected by the change, extended into three electorates—Waitaki, Otago Central, and North Dunedin.

The local option boundaries are defined in survey language, and pass through Enfield. Unless this data was referred to, it would be difficult to determine whether some electors living on the boundaries would be entitled to vote on the local option issue.