ELECTION OFFENCES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 31 October 1925, Page 7

ELECTION OFFENCES.

PUNISHMENTS PROVIDED. _ Rigorous punishment for impersonation of a parliamentary election is provided for under the Legislature Amendment Act, 1910. Clauses of the Act relating to this offence are as follow . 1. Every deputy returning officer may, without any other warrant than this Act, cause to be arrested and taken before a justice any person reasonably suspected of committing or attempting to commit at a pol Ting place any .act of personation. 2. It shalu be the duty of the icturning officer to institute a prosecution against any person whom he believes to have committed the offence of personation, or of aiding, abetting, counselling, or procuring the commission of that offence by any person, at the election for which he is returning officer.

3. Every person who commits the offence of personation, or of aiding, abetting, counselling, or procuring the commission of that offence, is liable to two years’ imprisonment with or without bard labour.

4. The costs and expenses of the prosecutor and the witnesses in such case, together with compensation for their trouble and loss of time, shall be allowed by the court-. 5. Every person commits the offence of personation who at any election applies to vote in the name of some other person, living or dead, or of a fictitious person, or who, having voted once at any .such election applies again at the same election to vote in his own name.