Appeal For Electors’Help

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30094, 30 March 1963, Page 12

Appeal For Electors’Help

(From Our Own Reporter/ WELLINGTON, March 29.

The co-operation of all who will be eligible to vote at the General Election next November is being sought by the Registrar-General of Electors (Mr L. Irwin) and his corps of registrars. Between next Monday and June 30 what amounts to a thorough purge of electors and a realignment of electors and electorates win be accomplished.

The first moves in this operation have already been earned out They consist of the printing of a new and simplified enrolment card, the posting of these cards to all electors at present enrolled, and the sending of supplies of the new cards to all post offices in New Zealand. Within the next week or so, all persons already enrolled as entitled to vote will receive their cards, which they must complete and return in order to safeguard their voting rights It is expected that, on Monday. most post offices will have a supply of cards, which are now being distributed A notice in the Gazette, published last night, makes registration compulsory under the Electoral Act This ap-

plies to every person qualified to be registered as an elector of any European or Maori electoral district. Application must be made within a month after a person first becomes qualified to vote, and also within a three-month period (as gazetted last night) after the proclamation of boundaries. The penalty for failing to register is a maximum of £2 for a first offence and £5 for a subsequent conviction. “This procedure was last carried out in HS7." Mr Irwin said “It is more accurate and costs no more than a purging of the rolls Those who miss can vote by declaration, if their names are on the old rolls—but there is plenty of time, and this should not be necessary."