Faster Special Vote Count Sought

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31568, 4 January 1968, Page 10

Faster Special Vote Count Sought

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, January 3.

An investigation into the feasibility of faster counting of special votes is being conducted by the Chief Electoral Officer (Mr J. L. Wright).

At present special votes are not counted and declared till several weeks after polling day. “New Zealand has one of the most comprehensive systems in the world for people to vote anywhere, any time. But from an administrative point of view, it is quite cumbersome,” Mr Wright said today in an interview. He said he thought it would be practicable for some special votes to be counted on polling night. But legislation would have to be amended to allow this,” said Mr Wright. Mr Wright said that in spite of publicity at election time, many eligible voters did not enrol. At the 1966 General Election, 50.000 special votes were disallowed, Mr Wright suspected that maar voters had simply not enrolled. There were 150,000 special votes cast at the General Election.

Mr Wright said that for the 1969 General Election he was planning a comprehensive programme to ensure that all qualified electors were enrolled and that the figures : published on election night were as complete as possible.