DUAL VOTING

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 61, 14 March 1939, Page 17

DUAL VOTING

SENTENCE* REDUCED

ONE MONTH !Nj STEAD OF SIX Percy Allen, apluiv iber, of New Plymouth, who was,jseaaA enced by Mr. Justice Ree,d in Ff^birudry to six months' imprisonment fi^>r; tlj c ofEence of personation at the; • General Election— applying for a ise^^jd d Voting paper in his own name ;_f»Ve. r having already voted once—had his sentence unanimously reduced by slhe Court of Appeal yesterday aft ferinoori to one month's imprisonme htf. The Court had the advantage 6t-:ii qertain statement that was riot befo >t& hi^ ■ Honour in the Supreme Court. I • ',•:',.' , The Court consist oi the Chief Justice (Sir Michael j $ lyers), Mr. Justice Ostler, Mr. Ju__4t&ice Smith, and Mr. Justice Fair. iMr. J. D. Willis appeared for Allen in his appeal against the sentence, .rand the SolicitorGeneral (Mr. H. H. dornish, K.C.) for the Crown. r .. Mr. Willis submit tig d that the sen-, tence was excessive. 'The prisoner, he said, must have bee. S» affected by the liquor he had taker fe he was a man who could stand any ', Amount of liquor without showing it_,. v"ted it was not until late in the day*'that the offence was committed. He vsi is a well-known figure in New Plyiriduth, and was personally known to the polling booth official and the conrjjiible on duty at the second booth." ■ The second voting? within a quarter of an hour si* the first. There was no attempt at-■ a.ipJ at personation, because Allen voted ibl his own name on both occasions.. • A sober man would not have gonfjt \twice within a quarter of an hour a*d voted in his own name. Becaa; ts^ of the man's physical condition a lang term of imprisonment would b> c detrimental to his health. A case hi Ml recently come before.-Mr. Justice <£Ss;tler at Napier where a man had ce-nhtimitted a similar offence, and he hi id been admitted to probation. Theret should not be the disparity betweejpi the sentences, submitted counsel. Mr. Cornish said tbi^offence was not a trivial one. Even '• if? the man were drunfl, he was not wh £>} ly so and must have been conscious df what he was doing. The Chief Justice s ai d he regarded the offence as a seriou:s,,<,>ne. One could see, he said, that iuA ia closely-con-tested election a fetta* i cases of dual voting might be a seriiofis matter both for the candidates ancfcffor the public, and where the result i was close the candidates and the cr iuntry might be put to considerable < btpense. Apart from that, the conduct* of Parliamentary elections should he clean, and kept clean. The case Appeared to be one where a man watt \ under the influence of liquor, though it did not appear he was so mu<£h so as not to know what he was dc^rffg. His Honour said he was impr teased with evidence that had not bte<*:n before Mr. Justice Reed, and thought that the ends of justice would ibe sufficiently met, and that it would ii be a sufficient deterrent, if the prisoijM^r served one month's imprisonment," Mr. Justice Ostler said that if he thought it had been ea ch. and fraudulent attempt to deflLit the purity of the poll he wofcld ha t interfere with the sentence, but he bje lieved that the prisoner had been affected by the amount of drink he~h"acl fcaken. The other two rnembetes-tof the Court concurred.