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Evening Post, Volume XCIX, Issue 70, 23 March 1920, Page 8

In consequence of the complicated system of voting at the last Federal elections and the failure to educate the public as to the new methods (says ' the Melbourne Age), the number of informal votes was enormous. For the Senate no fewer than 175,114 ballot papers were rejected as informal, whilst 68,535 voters for the House of Representatives were deemed not to have made their intention clear. The for Home and Territories^ (Mr. Poynton) intimated in Parliament last week that the number- of ballot papers rejected as informal in the various States were as follow: — New South , Wales—Senate, 67,227; House of Representatives, 26,520. Victoria,—Senate, 49,605; House of Representatives, 14,347. Queensland —Senate, 26,468 ; House of Representatives, 10,840. South Australia—Senate, 16,135; House of Representatives, 9634. Western Australia—Senate, 9315; House of Representatives, 3890. Tasmania —Senate, 6364; House of Representatives, 3304. The reading of these figures was greeted by Opposition members with cries of "That is where our majority went." The extraordinarily large number of informal votes in the Senate in New South Wales was probably due to the confusion caused by eleven candidates being in the field, but it'is difficult to account for the 10,840 informal votes in Queensland, where, out of ten electorates, there was only one in which there were more than two candidates. The leaf of the Ceylon talipot palm, which grows to a, hundred feet in height, is so wide that it will cover twenty men. Eleven American States have voted » total of £56,600 GOf' for highway expenditure during the next few years. Last year Great Britain used 2680 million gallons of petrol, as against 1200 million gallons in 1914, and it is expected that the consumption next year will cxi ceed 2000 million gallons.