NOT DELIBERATE

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 75, 21 December 1928, Page 24

NOT DELIBERATE

MAN WHO VOTED TWICE Dominion Special Service. Christchurch, December 20. An old man, 78 years of age, named William Spiers, was charged in rhe Magistrate’s Court to-day witli having voted twice at. the recent elections. Mr. A. A. .McLachlan, who appeared for Spiers, said that he understood the returning officer was certain that there was no deliberate attempt at impersonation. Sub-Inspector Fitzpatrick said that defendant went to a Sydenham pollingbooth and there recorded his vote. He wandered on to another table in the same polling-booth where an attendant asked him his name and gave him further papers, which lie apparently used. in the afternoon be began to think it over and went back to the booth to explain that be thought he must have tilled in fob many papers. When interviewed by the police lie said that he thought the second lot of papers were for the licensing poll. He was in his seventyninth year and apparently his mental faculties were not as good as they had been. _ ... , The Magistrate (Mr. L. D. Mosley). ’The Act aims to stop attempts that are deliberate. A man who votes twice in the same booth is hardly doing it deliberately. He added that there was no criminal intent, and he dismissed the case.