ELECTION PETITION

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 22, 28 January 1929, Page 10

ELECTION PETITION

BAY OF ISLANDS SEAT

HEARING BEGINS

COUNTING OF VOTES

(By Telegraph. —Press Association.)

KAIKOHE, This Day

The hearing of tho petition lodged in the name of John William M'Caulay on behalf of Mr. Allen Bell's committee, sotting out twenty grounds on which it was claimed tho Bay of Islands election should bo declared void, opened at Kaikohe this morning before their Honours Mr. Justice Herdman and Mr. Justice Ostler. Mr. Logan and Mr. M'Veagh represented those who filed the petition. The Courthouse was crowded.

Mr. M'Voagh, in addressing tho Court, stated that at the statutory count tho parties were even, and the Returning Officer gave his casting vote in favour of Mr. Bell. Subsequently, Mr. Hushworth asked for a recount before a Magistrate. This was granted, and Mr. Rushworth was declared elected by two votes. Certain irregularities had occurred, but he wanted to make it clear in justice to Mr. Blundell, the Returning Officer, that he had not been provided with a copy of the regulations as provided in the Act. Mr. M'Veagh, in reviewing the petition, withdrew five clauses and dealt with technical details under tho Electoral Act. • Ho laid stress upon the fact that there was a differonce, of three votes between the Magistrate's total and that of the Returning Officer. Another point of importance was that under section 149 of the regulations it was essential to liavo a Justice present to sign the Returning Officer's certificate. This had not been done.

MAGISTRATE'S EVIDENCE. John Hector Luxford, Magistrate at Whangarei, said that at the magisterial recount Mr. Blundell admitted that lie had omitted to appoint a Justice at the official count. At his request, tho Returning Officer.- prepared a declaration showing that 8087 votes had been recorded at the election. The recount was then proceeded with. There wore 3818 votes for Mr. Bell, 349 for Mr. Hornblow, 3820 for Mr. Rushworth, and 59 were rejected,as informal. Tho total imntber of votes counted by him was 8084, and by Mr. Blundell SOS 7. Ho disallowed 35 postal votes and three absentee votes. The returns of tho returning officers at the various booths .throughout the electorate tallied with his total, and ho could not find that any votes had' been lost, stolen, or destroyed. There were 95 postal votes, but ho could only find 94, though there were 95 in the Licensing poll. The returning officer kept a register of the number, of postal votes received, and this showed that thero were 94. He could not find any that might have been lost or mislaid, and formed the opinion that an arithmetical error had been made. On the applications for absentee votes thero was a declaration, and tho registrar of electors had to certify that tho signature was correct. In tho case of ono absentee, the registrar • put O.K. on tho corner of the document, and his initial, and "the registrar of electors certifies that the signature is correct." In th, case of one absentee the registrar put O.K. on the corner of the document and initialled it, but this vote was disallowed because- tho declaration had not been, made. The vote apparently had been counted in the- total, but it seemed impossible to trace it. In the ease of two electors who struck out all tho names on the ballot paper and wrote in Mr. Bell's name, he disallowed them because ho could get no proof that the writing was that of the persons who had voted in this way. Those two papera could bo produced, but hia doubt was whether thero could be identification. Regarding the votes east at the Kawakawa Hospital, ho disallowed these because the. certificate had to show that the witness was an authorised person. Tho person ,in this case was not qualified, though Mr. Blundell told him that he had authorised the secretary of the Hospital Board to act.

VOTES ALLOWED. Mr. Luxford said that in the case of three ballot papers, where the names of the candidates had been crossed out, each voter having written on the face of the ballot papers the names of all the candidates, with a horizontal line opposite the names of Messrs. Bell and Homblow, he had. allowed these votes fco Mr. Rushworth, because no line was opposite his name. In the case of seventeen, booths the returns required by the Act had not boen made. No account had been kept of the number of ballot papers issued at various booths, and there was no balance-sheet of ballot papers to go by. In a caso where an elector had made a mistake in the spelling of a name, with the result that the signature did not correspond with the specimen signature of the voter on the application for registration, he disallowed this because ho considered himself bound by the certificate of the Registrar of Electors, though, in his opinion, there was no doubt that he was the right man.

Mr. Blundell, in his evidence, said that ho had not been supplied with a copy of the election regulations. It might havo been sent out, but he had not seen it. Eegarding the discrepancy of ono between Mr. Luxford's and his total of Postal votes, ho put this down to an error in his own addition. He admitted tiiat no Justice was present in accordance with the Act.

(Proceeding.)