COMPULSORY VOTING.

Clutha Leader, Volume XX, Issue 1025, 16 March 1894, Page 3

COMPULSORY VOTING.

It appears that a very considerable number of electors have been struck off the roll because they did not vote at the last election, and moreover that as yet very few of such electors have taken steps to get their names on the roll again. I think the presumption is that many of such disenfranchised voters are vexed and disgusted at such sharp practice, and do not feel inclined to go through all the trouble and bother involving the giving of explanations of their not voting, and incur loss of time in order to get their names placed on the roll again. A voter may have omitted to vote from various causes — illness, weakness, business engagements, or forgetting the day. To me it seems such a stringent regulation is absurd, unjustifiable, and, as far as regards any good it does the country, unnecessary. Some people may have no particular choice as to the candidates, and consider one just as good as the other. Why should such people be forced to vote one way or the other ? It has been said the large number of women who voted at the last election is a proof of the great interest women take in politics and how desirous they were to exercise the franchise, but the proof of that would have been more certain if this regulation had not existed, artd not voting had not involved the striking of names off the roll. If this absurd law forcing people to vote be abolished at once I do not think the country will suffer from it, at the same time that it will do away with a large amount of annoyance, vexation, exasperation, and trouble.