WAITOMO ELECTION PETITION

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 122, 8 February 1923, Page 7

WAITOMO ELECTION PETITION

EFFECT OF MR. JENNINGS’S DEATH The effect of Mr. W. J. Jennings’s death on the election petition against the return of Mr. J. C. Rolleston for WaAtbinti is being discussed in the lobbies. Election petitions abate on the death of the petitioner, but the Legislature Act provides that ■ after notice of abatement has been given any person who might in -.he first instance have presented the petition may apply to the Election Court to be substituted as a petitioner. It is therefore open to members of the Liberal Party still to contest Mr. Rolleston’s election, though it will be for the Court th bay whether a substitute petitioner is to be accepted. No indication has been given of the party’s intentions. Section 207 of the Legislature Act, 1908, states. “An election petition shall abate on the death of the pet-i--tionei. ... On the abatement of a petition, the prescribed notice of such abatement having taken place shall be given in the district to which the petition relates, and within the prescribed time after th<; notice is given any person who might, in the first instance have presented the petition may apply to t]>9 Election Court .... to bo substituted as a petitioner. The Election Court may, if it thinks fit, substitute any such applicant as petitioner on security being given to the same amount as is required in the case of a new petition.” Tho persons' who, under the Legislature Act, may present an election petition are: Any person who voted, or had a right to vote, at the election to which tho petition relates; any person alleging ihat he was entitled to be. returned; any person alleging hiras’fTf to have been a candidate. It will be seen that eligibility to apply for sutititution is not bv any means narrowly confined. It’ is understood that at the hearing of the Oamaru petition presented by Mr. Lee (Reform; against the election of Mr. Macpherson (Liberal) an alleged irregularity in the lodging of the required deposit of £2OO will, be raised as a preliminary objection by the respondent.