TO VOTE AT SEA

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30275, 30 October 1963, Page 13

TO VOTE AT SEA

Ships’ Crews, Passengers

"The Press” Special Service AUCKLAND; Oct. 29.

Hundreds of New Zealand travellers will cast their votes in the General Election on board ships at sea. They will be voters who will leave New Zealand before nominations close and will be unlikely to reach one of the 28 overseas polling places before the deadline for the ballot. Passengers on the Southern Cross, which left Auckland on Friday, the Oronsay, which left on Sunday, and the Fair Sky, leaving Auckland on Saturday, will vote on board. Mariposa passengers will be able to vote in San Francisco. and Orsova passengers in San Francisco or Vancouver.

Two New Zealanders booked on the Athenic will have to airmail their votes.

Passengers on the Ruahine sailing from Wellington have a fortnight in which to cast their votes in London. The list of voters who expect to be at sea during the voting period was growing all the time, said Mr L. W. Irwin, the chief electoral officer.

The figures and dates which the electoral officers were working on were liable to change at any time. They could be told of a tramp steamer in the Pacific which had a large proportion of New Zealand seamen on board and would have to do their best to provide them with voting facilities. Where a ship's timetable was adequate for passengers to vote ashore, no provision was made for shipboard voting. But in a ship such as the Oronsay, calling at several ports, voting arrangements were made which did not cut into passengers’ sight-seeing time.