TUAPEKA ELECTION.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 225, 16 June 1908, Page 8

TUAPEKA ELECTION.

9 ; . A CURIOUS ERROR. MOUNT IDA ELECTORS ON THE ROLL. ' The error of a clerk in tho Electoral Department is responsible for a curious position in regard .to the recent by-election for Tuapoka. It appears that about 100 nanles wore placed on the Tuapeka roll of persons who, at t-lio timo of the by-elcction, were really members of the adjoining electorate of Mount Ida. Though these .persons wero. .wrongly placed on the Tuapeka roll, the Chief Electoral Officer (Mr. F. W. Mansfield) thinks that none of them could possibly have been aware of the fact, and, therefore, it is unlikely that any of tbeni voted at the byelection. Even if they thought that thoy had the right, it would have been very difficult for most of them to voto, owing to their great distanco from a polling booth. The marked rolls will arrivo in Wellington today. The possibility of wrong voting i 3 mado interesting by the close issuo of the election, which was won by Dr. Chapplo by a majority of only 31 votes over Mr. Horn. Tho clerk's error is very simply explained. Tho names of electors are placed on cards, and from theso cards the rolls for each electorate are compiled. Recently tho boundaries of tho Tuapeka electorate have been altered in a somewhat confusing way. Tho new'district takes portions from tho electorates of Waikouaiti, Taieri, Mount Ida, old Tnapeka, and old Clutha, and gives them to Bruce and Taieri. All these changes wero duly considered some weeks | ago in making up the cards for Tuapoka in view of tho general election. When the necessity arose for holding a by-olection, the roll, for that purposo had to .be compiled according to tho old boundaries, since the by-election was for tho old, and not for the altered electorate. Cards representing electors in the now portions of Tuapeka had to bo deducted from the total, and placed in their previous receptacles. Other cards. which had been taken out of Tuapdka's pile, representing the electors in surrendered districts,, had to be All this was done correctly, with the exception that about 100 cards, representing electors of Mount Ida, who had changed their addresses, were by an oversight left. among the Tuapoka assortment, with the result that tho names of those electors were included in tho Tuapeka roll. Though they are lawful electors or Tuapeka for tho purposo of tho coming general election, and of subsequent elections, thoy were not meant to be electors of that seat for tha purposo of the by-election. As has been stated, Mr.- Mansfield has strong reason to believe that theso_ electors fully understood what their position was meant to be. It was well known throughout tho district, ho explains, that the election was to bo contested in connection with the old boundaries, in which case these Mount Ida people would possess no vote. They could not know that, by an error, their names wero on tho roll for the election. In any case, thero was no polling plane within their district. It is thought improbable, therefore, that any of them voted. At Chatto. Creek, the nearest polling place to tho Mount Ida district, only fourteen votes were cast. It would seem that if the result.of the election should bo disputed as tho result of this mistake, legal difficulties might bo presented to the removal of'these hundred names from the roll, although, assuredly, thoy had no right to bo there. Section 57 ,of the Act of 1905 states that:—"Except as provided in Sections 45 and 51 . . . it shall not be lawful for any registrar . ... to enter on or to remove from the roll of any electoral district the name of any persoii after tho day of tho issue of the-.writ for tho election , .

until the completion of the said election." If rolls could be. questioned afterwards, it is urged,.there would be no limit to tho number of disputed elections. Tho'mishap illustrates how accidents may happen in the " best regulated families." Tho compilation of tho rollVby'tho Electoral Department is conducted on a system so elaborate, so detailed,'so merciless in its precautions against error, that an unmethodical journalist found it terrible to survey.