ELECTORS NOT ENROLLED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15747, 23 October 1914, Page 7

ELECTORS NOT ENROLLED.

COMPLAINTS IN THE HOUSE.

"FAULT OF THE SYSTEM/'

[BY TELEGHArH.— SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.

Wellington-, Thursday. The complaints of various people qualified to vote that their names are not on the electoral rolls were again referred to by Sir Joseph Ward in the House this evening. He said that he had received numerous letters from people who were not enrolled, and he had satisfied himself that the complaints were legitimate.

Mr. Okey (Taranaki): Why don't they get on the rolls instead of writing to you ? It would be just as easy as writing to you.

Sir Joseph Ward: Thousands of people are being left off the rolls and they do not know. It is not the fault of the Department; it is the fault of the system.

The Hon. F. M. B. Fisher: It is the fault of the people who will not take the trouble to get on the rolls.

Sir Joseph Ward: I have letters pouring in to me from all parts of the Dominion. One man received a letter stating that he had been struck off the rolls and stating that any objection must be lodged by a certain time. The letter, however, was not received until a day after the expiry of the time within which it was stated the objection must be lodged. He considered that the proper thing to do was to have an amendment in the present Bill providing, subject to ample safeguards, that all properly-quali-fied persons should have the right to vote whether they were on the rolls or not. Otherwise, thousands and thousands of people who were qualified to vote would be unable to do so. The Hon. F. M. B. Fisher said that the rolls had been thoroughly purged this year. There were some 590,000 people on the rolls, and the comparatively few complaints received showed that the work must have been well done. If people would only take the trouble to write to the registrars instead of to members of Parliament they would scon find their names on the rolls. The Act that was now being administered was Sir Joseph Ward's own Act. Sir Joseph Ward : That is not so. The Hon. .Mr. Fisher: Yes, it is. The only difference is that we are administering a clause that you did not ad- ! minister. In reply to a question regarding the closing of the supplementary rolls, Mr. Fisher said that the date would be decided when the date of the election was j fixed. There would be plenty of time I for voters to become enrolled.