LICENSING POLL RETURNS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVIII, Issue 12986, 29 November 1902, Page 5

LICENSING POLL RETURNS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —The keenest interest, as everyone knows, is taken in the polling returns during the first two or three days following the electoral ’and licensing polls, and the newspapers containing them are posted in quantities to friends beyond the seas. So far as the licensing poll is concerned, they must be both misleading and incomprehensible, because of their incompleteness. But there is no reason why they should be less complete, nor their publication more delayed lh%n those of the electoral poll. I was scrutineer at the Ashburton Borough Council Chambers booth, and when we had counted the votes, which did not taka us more than twenty minutes longer than the counting of the electoral poll votes at the same booth, the two counts starting simultaneously, we were in possession of all the facts embodied in the following form, and could as easily have filled up and reported all these particulars to the returning-ofiioer for the district for immediate announcement, as the mere number of votes for continuance, reduction and no-license respectively, which, without the number of voters who recorded valid votes, contribute nothing to the determination of the result. I am not reflecting upon the returningoffioer for the district, who is as honourable, and probably as competent as any re-turning-ofiicer in the colony, for the form of returns from polling-booths for immediate announcement seems to be the sauna for every electorate, but am wishing to . point out that if the department would 1 issue a' more complete form, like the following, all the particulars are available in every poll-in-booth directly the counting^is completed. From these the returning-officer could fill up a similar form for the whole electorate, and the public have all the means of calculating the actual results quite as soon as they have the electoral poll returns.! There are six ways that voters can vote at the licensing, poll. We had only to sort the papers into the six heaps, casting out informal ones, and then carefully count the papers in each heap and record the votes that they express, thus: Kb. of Votes for

Besides this there were 22 whose papers were informal, which are excluded by the Act from, being included in calculating the result. There is not an instance in which the figures for continuance, reduction and nolicense have been communicated to the Press, in which the complete figures, including the number of votens, as the means of getting at the result of the poll could not have been given at the same time, if only the form to be filled in had required it. I feel confident that this, has only to be recognised by the Government to secure its being remedied for the future, and the Press and public saved from much annoyance for the want of it. Such ai form also reveals the manner of counting the votes, and would remove public misgiving in that respect.—l am, etc., EDWARD WALKER. Ashburton, Nov. 28, 1202.

tfi fV i b t ll il >■ 0 3 525 voters struck ■out only the first (top line) 525 — 625 525 2 vo liars struck out only -iXh.e second lino 2 2 — 2 11 voters struck out •only the 'third line 11 ii 11 75 voters struck out the first and second lines 75 — 75 14 voters struck out the first and third lines 14 — 14 ‘ 282 voters struck out the 'second and third lines 282 2S2 — . — Totals 909 295 650 602'