Court action might follow National’s dual – voting claim in Lyttelton

Press, 30 November 1978, Page 1

Court action might follow National’s dual - voting claim in Lyttelton

More than 1000 votes in the Lyttelton electorate might be challenged by the National Party after the discovery of “several hundred*’ cases of dual-voting, according to the party’s campaign chairman (Mr R. Gormack). The challenge might lake the form of an electoral petition to the Supreme Court.

TS e National Party had scr ineers at every polling booth in Lyttelton on Saturday, and they were supposed to mark off each voter on their own lists. The scrutineers’ lists are now being compared, and Mr Gormack said they had revealed several hundred cases where more than one vote — and sometimes as many as four votes — had been cast against a voter’s number.

Instances of apparent irregularities found by the National Party scrutineers include:

— Two National Party officials, who are prepared to swear on oath that they voted only once, but whose names appeared twice on the rolls, at different addresses. Votes were recorded against their names at each address.

— People who had died or left the electorate, but whose names still appeared on the roll, had votes cast against their names. — A person enrolled at a false address had voted against the entry in the rolls. The National Party found the address was an empty section with a “For Sale’’ notice on it. Mr Gormack said scrutineers had noticed an influx of voters between 4 p.m. and 5 pxn. on Sat-

urday, who came in in a well-ordered sequence (whole streets were involved) in Redcliffs and Sumner.

These people were conspicuous by the dress, said Mr Gormack. One scrutineer described them as “dressed like hippies.” “We thought nothing of it at the time. We just thought someone was doing a good job of getting people out to vote,” said Mr Gormack. However, the returning officer for Lyttelton (Mr J. A. Cross) said he had “reasonable doubts” whether Mr Gormack’s figures were acurate. His own team had accounted for about two-thirds of the polling booths in the electorate and had found only about eight cases of dualvoting.

The National Party could only rely on its own lists of voters, and not on the marked rolls as yet. said Mr Cross. It was possible that as each voter’s number had been called out the party’s scrutineers had copied out the wrong number or put it in the wrong column against the wrong name. There was room for considerable error, he said. Mr Gormack agreed there was room for error, but said that even a big pro-

portion of errors would leave enough instances to be concerned about. Mr Gortnack was not sure what steps the party could take to challenge the votes. He said he would send a list of challenges to Mr Cross and might take legal advice. Under the Electoral Act, an election or return can be questioned only by an electoral petition to the Supreme Court. If successful, the Court can declare an election void, and another election would have to be called. Mr Cross said he “did not want to see” any list of challenges as he believed there was nothing he could do about it as a returning officer. The National Party and returning officer do not know how any particular voter voted in the General Election. This can be found out only if the red sticker on the ballot paper is removed, revealing the voter’s number on the roll. Mr Cross said that, as far as he knew, only a court order could allow the sticker to be removed. “It is not a case of sour grapes,” said Mr Gormack. “We went through quite some heart-burning last night, trying to decide whether to publish this or

not. But we accepted that we were beaten, and beaten fairly. We are now beginning to wonder if we were beaten fairly.” The Sydenham returning officer (Mr M. A. Underwood) said he had found about six cases of apparent double-voting after checking two-thirds of all polling booths in the electorate.

“I was pleasantly surprised — there are usually quite a few more,” said Mr Underwood. He said there was usually some good explanation for the apparent double-voting, but the returning officer usuallv got the police to inquire or sent it on to the Chief Electoral Officer, who would institute a prosecution. It was no concern of the returning officer whether a political party was to sponsor an electoral petition. The Canterbury regional secretary of the Labour Party (Mr B. Arps) said he had not heard of the same problem from his party’s scrutineers in Lyttelton or anywhere else.

He said the same allegation was made last election, but National “obviously did nothing about it.” “I’d be very pleased to give them any assistance, just to get the rolls straight,” said Mr Arps.