RAGLAN ELECTION PETITION

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22313, 24 April 1947, Page 6

RAGLAN ELECTION PETITION

FORMS IMPROVISED * VOTINGJPAPERS SUPPLY EXHAUSTED VISITORS AT TAUPO (P.A.) HAMILTON, April 23. More was heard in Raglan Electoral Court yesterday afternoon of the shortage of voting papers in a booth at the Magistrate’s Court at Taupo on the day of the general election. Evidence was given by William Howard Hill, deputy-returning officer, that he and the officer in charge of an adjacent booth had' each received from the returning officer at Taumarunui a parcel of declaration forms and other papers necessary for 25 absentee voters. Shortly after midday this supply of 50 forms had been exhausted, and urgent telephone requests to Taumarunui and Rotorua merely brought replies that no more forms could be spared. Envelopes and Papers Collected Hill said there were than about 100 voters in the booth, or its precincts, and it was essentia] to record their votes in some way. He. therefore, asked a poll clerk to go round Taupo collecting envelopes and sheets of blank paper on which handwritten copies in pencil were made of declaration and other forms, the supplies of which had run out. Witness estimated that 200 voters used these improvised forms. In reply to the Chief Justice, Sir Humphrey O’Leary, witness said that the fishing season had brought an unexpected number of visitors to Taupo, and it had been thought that mid-week polling would mean fewer visitors than had the voting day been on a Saturday. More printed forms had reached Taupo before the booths closed. Witness was shown one written form which had previously been produced to the Court during evidence on the case of George Joseph Davis, lorry driver, who voted in Taupo as an absentee voter for Raglan, and who had been challenged both on residential grounds and on the ground that his declaration

was not on the prescribed form. Witness identified the handwriting in the body of the document as that of a poll clerk and the signature as being his own. . Formal objection to the admissibility of Hill’s evidence was made by Mr. W. J. Sim. K.C., leading counsel for the petitioner. Lineage Cases Finished Most of the afternoon was spent in the hearing of evidence as to the lineage of the voters objected to as being of predominantly Maori blood. Cases of this kind on the petitioner's list were finished just before the Court rose and Mr. Sim'indicated that the proceedings shpuld move more expeditiously from to-day. He said the petitioner's case should be completed late this afternoon or on Thursday. Mr A. L Tompkins, presenting the case of Thomas Noda, of Huntly, miner, said the petitioner claimed that Nocla s father was born of a Japanese father and of a mother who was of full Maori blood. Noda’s mother, it was claimed, was born of a half-caste mother and three-quarter caste Maori father. Consequently the voter had more Maori than European blood. . Noda, in evidence, said he belieted himself to be a half-Maori and halfJapanese.