LICENSING POLL

Evening Post, Volume XCVII, Issue 50, 1 March 1919, Page 4

LICENSING POLL

SOLDIERS' VOTES

The Electoral and Defence Departments •are providing full facilities for soldiers who wish to vote in the licensing Poll on 10th April. Soldiers under hospital treatment (not discharged) will be entitled to vote. 'Arrangements are to be made for polling booths at the hospitals and other institutions for the use of the soldiers who cannot poll at the ordinary booths.

Soldiers who receive their discharge before 6th March, when the r.olls close, will not be entitled to vote unless they have become registered electors, and have their names on the roll. The fact that a soldier has been absent from. New Zealand on military, service will not 'disqualify him from registration because of non-residence.. He may apply for enrolment in the electorate in which he formerly resided if he is not able to comply with the month's residential qualification in any other electorate. If he is living in a fresh electorate, he can enrol through the post in his old electorate, and vote in his own district, or in any district by means of the absent voters' permit. Soldiers who are now being discharged will be handed a claim for enrolment to enable them to register for the district in which they resided prior to their departure from New Zealand.

Soldiers who land in. New Zealand between 3rd March and 14th. March will" have : their leave before discharge extended' until 11th April, so as to bring them under the provisions of the Expeditionary Forces Voting Act, enabling them to vote as soldiers. If they arrive on or after 14th March, the usual leave prior to discharge will enable them to bo covered by the same Act, and to vote as soldiers. . Special arrangements are being made to enrol soldiers as they arrive on the transports. \ MAORI SOI/DIERS.

The position is different for Maori soldiers who are returning. ' The Licensing Poll has always been taken on the day of the General Election for European members of Parliament, and by ballot on a special voting paper. . Maori elections are not necessarily held on the same day_ as the European elections, and the Maori does not vote by ballot. Another point of difference is that the Maori electorates are not the same as the European constituencies. Therefore, Maoris hava never voted in licensing elections, and' there was no special reason for bringing the Maori vote into the determination of trie .special licensing poll on a question on which they had never previously been authorised to exerciso 'the franchise. But Maoris who have not been discharged from the Expeditionary Force on 10th April will, as soldiers, be entitled to vote. If they have been discharged on that date, they will cea"'3-'to have a special qualification, and rill be included in a body to whom the determination of the licensing issue has never been entrusted by Parliament.