Compromise over special votes

Press, 29 November 1978, Page 6

Compromise over special votes

PA Auckland A compromise agreement on the scrutiny of special votes has been reached by the Labour Party and the Crown.

The agreement was reached after the Labour Party sought a Supreme Court test case. The candidate for Manurewa, Mr R. 0. Douglas, and two others asked the Court for an interim order requiring the Electorate Officer in Manurewa. Mr P. Stewart, to obtain the Manurewa roll and applications for special votes and allow Mr Douglas or his agent to inspect them. Mr Justice Moller yesterday called a conference of the. parties in the Supreme Court: at Auckland. The conference: was held in chambers, and’ ended at the lunchtime adjournment. His Honour sat in open court at 2 p.m. and counsel for the applicants. Dr J. Prebble, read a statement I which had been agreed to by Crown counsel, Mr D. P. Neazor. The statement said the applicants had brought the proceeding in order to gain access to records, held by the Chief Electoral Officer, in, order to check that special' votes were properly counted: and processed. The Crown had accepted that section 64 (2) of the Electoral Act allowed for the inspection, at local electoral offices, of the names and par-) ticulars of any persons whose I names were on the electoral: roll (a master roll) but not’ on the main roll or any supplementary rolls. The section also allowed for the inspection of applications by persons to be registered as electors of a district but whose names were not on the electoral roll. “However,” the statement’ said “all applications to register — except those received after October 27 — have been filed in Wellington in one alphabetical file fori the whole country. “Under this procedure, the:

I original applications are not 'available for examination in district electoral offices.” — Therefore it had been necessary for the court applicants to accept other arrangeiments, “in order to achieve I the closest scrutiny of the (counting and checking that I is practicable.” The arrangements are: — The Chief Electoral Officer, Mr J. L. Wright, will invite the political parties that I contested the election to apI point a representative who will be shown the entire pro'cedure used in deciding the eligibility of special votes; — The system will be checked against several special votes chosen by thej party representatives; i — On request from the re-1 | presentatives of any candiIdate. Mr Wright will supply ’copies of any applications to enrol which were made by persons who are not on the electoral roll of the district where they sought enrolment. There is no limit stated on the number of applications for which a candidate can request copies, although the statement said that it would only apply to those cards Mr Wright could find in his files.) The effect of the second' arrangement appears to be! the provision of evidence which could be used to ensure a special vote was validated. When Dr Prebble finished reading the statement, his Honour praised the parties! for the manner in which the! agreement had been reached. He adjourned sine die the] application for an interim' order. Allegations of double voting and of Maoris voting illegally on general rolls are! being investigated by the' National Party in eight mar-| ginal electorates. The National Party presi-j dent, Mr G. A. Chapman,!

said yesterday that he saw two areas of concern. First, there was “a lot of ■ talk” about alleged double: voting in several electorates. I Second, it had been as-1 [serted that Maoris on the 1 ’rolls for Maori seats but not for general seats were casting special votes in general seats, which would be invalid. “All these claims are being, istudied by the scrutineers we I have appointed in the margi-l Inal seats,” Mr Chapman: I said. In particular, National would scrutinise the results in the four Labour-held marginals of Kapiti, Western j Hutt, Hastings, and Hunua, and in the four National marginals of Miramar. New I Plymouth, Gisborne and InI vercargill. Mr Chapman said that it) ’was too early to mak e any) judgment about possible legal: challenges to the result in close seats. The Labour Party has! placed, advertisements in the’ public notices columns of) newspapers in marginal seats asking those who had to cast a special vote on Saturday, I because their names did notl lappear on the rolls, to get in) touch with the party I urgently. 1 The general secretary, of! the party, Mr J. G. Wybrow, . said that many who had gone to the polls were told they were not on the roll, “and (couldn’t even get a special.” I Others had been told to 'vote in the wrong electorate because of inaccuracies in the index of streets. Such’ people would have their: votes ruled out as invalid when they were counted. : In one critical marginal seat, 400 votes of persons found not to be on the roll! were on their way to Wel-| iington to be checked by the: Chief Electoral Officer.