ELECTORAL BLUNDER

Gisborne Times, Volume LX, Issue 9722, 4 June 1924, Page 7

ELECTORAL BLUNDER

DEAD MAN ORDERED TO ENROL

SYDNEY, May 22>

The ways of the Commonwealth Electoral Department are apt to be a little dark. Ever since the vain notions of a Labor Government passed the Compulsory Enrolment Act-, with its additional army of officials scattered far and wide, a few queer things have come to light. Here is one of very recent date. A peremptory demand with all the snap and crispness .of a- “Please explain” about it, reached a Turramurra home because a certain name was missing from the roll. The envelope was stuffed with documents, including a declaration form which “must” he filled in and signed by a. J.P., setting out tho why and the wherefore and so forth.

There, was only one thing, however, wrong —the man to whom they were addressed had been dead three years! Still it did not spare the feelings of the widow into whoso sorrowing hands this blundering piece of official carelessness came from a good-deal of pain and annoyance. The husband’s death was registered and published' at the time, but it doesn’t appear to have been the business of the Electoral Department to take note of the fact.