Electoral rolls

Press, 28 November 1980, Page 12

Electoral rolls

Sir.—Could you please tell me why there is not a system of erasing a deceased person from the electoral rolls upon the registration of the person’s death. My mother died on November 11, 1973, and I have just filed and filled in the third form for the electoral roll which arrived for her. Each time an election is due we get the same repetitive forms. It must be distressing for some people and surely there must be a way of eradicating the names of deceased from the rolls. — Yours, etc., (Mrs) E. J. STODDART, Westport, November 18,1980.

(The Chief Postmaster, Mr D. Page, replies: “The 1956 Electoral Act and subsequent amendments provide for registrars of births, deaths and marriages to notify registrars of electors of deaths of persons 18 years of age or over. Action can then be taken to delete the elector’s name from the respective electoral roll. It is obvious that in the case of Mrs Stoddart’s mother, a breakdown in clerical procedure occurred. The annoyance, distress and inconvenience caused by the failure is regretted. The present roll revision exercise is intended to detect all such past omissions and from 1981 when the first of the electoral rolls ..exclusively compiled and maintained by the Post Office is printed, it is expected that the error rate will be very low.”)