"A BURLESQUE ELECTION"

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVIII, Issue 110, 12 May 1914, Page 3

"A BURLESQUE ELECTION"

HOUSEHOLDERS AT NELSON

INVESTIGATION DEMANDED

The proceedings at the meeting of householders on Monday evening for the purpose of electing a. Town Spliools Committee appear to have been conducted with a disregard for the usual conventions that has a comical as well as a serious side (states the Colonist). Various matters of interest in educational aifairs which have arisen * during the year, and especially the vexed question of hop-picking holidays, conduced to a large attendance, aaid the floor and gallery of the Provincial Hall, where the meeting took place, were well filled. According to the of tKjjukkh'iied spectators, the crowding of the building had an unfortunate effect Upon decorum when the, ballot was taken, and rendered, the perpetration of irregularities ■ a simple matter to anyone disposed to commit ,them. It is: common talk that serious irregularities did, in fact, occur. We are' informed that the ballot papers were distributed and collected promiscuously, the voters crowding round the table to receive them ■ and deposit them in the ballot box. The papers bore no means of identification, such' as the sea.l of the School Committee, nor was there apparently any other adequate check upon plural voting, while votes are alleged to have been, exercised-; by unqualified pen-sons. It is stiated that one householder found himself■■ without, a paper, and that an obliging neighbor furnished s him- with a leaf • from his pocket-book, which served the purpose equally well. Several .people seem to have made no secret of the fact that they utilised a number of papers. In-1 response to an inquiry whether the votes had been collected upstairs, a rain >of ballot papers descended upon the just and unjust beneath the gallery, to be deposited in the box or not, as fate decreed. Altogether the conduct of the election was so unsatisfactofy as to call for investigation by thfe Board of Education. The. method-of electing school committees is not free from defects, even when the provisions of the Act are complied with, but such disregard of formality as evidently distinguished Monday evening's meeting 'is calculated to produce contemptuous indifference to the proceedings on the part of the public, which will not assist the cause of primary education.