INVALID VOTE AT ELECTIONS

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 89, 11 January 1923, Page 6

INVALID VOTE AT ELECTIONS

ALWAYS CONSIDERABLE SOME OF THE CAUSES STRIKING FIGURES It looks exceedingly simple: “The voter is to strike out the name of every candidate for whom he does not intend to vote, by drawing a line through the name with a pen or pencil.” That was all that the voter was required to do; yet at the last general election tho number of those_ whose votes were “informal” was 6508; in 1919, it was 7587; in 1914, 5618; in 1911, 4143; and in 1908, 4596. The 1922 figure is unofficial, but it may be taken as approximately correct. It indicates that some 60U0 New Zealanders found themselves unequal to the task of following the simple instructions printed on the ballot-paper. The 1919 figure gives a more serious reflection of carelessness, or, it may be, stupidity, since, the total number of those who voted in 1919 was only 542,740, while the number of those who voted at this election was 613,803. At the 1922 national licensing poll, 7832 ' informal votes were cast, while in local option ]K>lls there were another 2990 informal votes. How does it come about that the number of invalid votes is so high? Carelessness and a certain amount of obtuseness on the part of the voter i-iust account for the greater part 01 the trouble. A voter, however, may have no wish to record any preference, sav in the licensing poll, and may put his licensing ballot-paper in the box unmarked, or perhaps cancelled by a dash of the pen. That paper goes to swell the total of invalid votes. In a no-license district, the voter will occasionally neglect the local-option paper for the paper, with the national issues. . ' ._ Queer people occasionally sacrifice their votes to a melodramatic impulse. At one election a man tore a candidate’s name off his ballot-paper. He deliberately ignored the instructions for voting, and remarked to the returning officer that the candidate whose name he had torn off was not fit to be on the same paper as the candidate of his choice. Needless to . say, the chosen candidate did not gain by the net* * But dcliberatetinvalidation of a vote must be comparatively rare. Most of the invalidations are accidental. Sometimes where there are two’candidates in an election the name of one is wholly struck out, and the name of the other, partly; or, perhap?, it the ballot-paper contains three names, only one is struck out, and two are left. Again, some electors leave indications oAheir identity upon the ballot-papers, and this serves to invalidate their votes. Such words as “Kia Ora are now and then found cn the papers, but these inscriptions, it is stated, are not generally regarded by returning officers as affecting the validity of a the face of the large informal vote at each election, one would be inclined to suggest that the Education Department should endeavour to produce a generation which would be capable of voting in the prescribed manner. The Department, however, has anticipated the suggestion. The November number of the School Journal” contained an excellent article on general elections.