MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19627, 4 May 1927, Page 10

MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS

Emphatically adverse opinions upon the new method of voting in municipal elections have been expressed by the returning officers in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, who agree that with a long list of candidates there is less risk of mistakes when voting is by selective crosses than by eliminative marks. There appears to be a logical basis for their contentions, though a high proportion of informal votes is not a novelty. But the inherent weakness of the huge ballot-paper is not the mechanical difficulty of marking it accurately. From the public point of view, a greater objection is the virtual impossibility for the individual elector to select out of 50 or 60 names those candidates with the highest qualifications for appointment to the city's government. With the expansion of the city, that embarrassment will become greater, until even the iriost conscientious elector in. the Greater Auckland that is now envisaged*by its advocates will be confronted with a hopeless task. Under the present system, new candidates, however superior their qualifications, have little oppormaking themselves known to electors, and less prospect of 'election, while the risk of large districts being deprived of direct representation has been illustrated in the past —for instance, immediately after the amalgamation of Point Chevalier the chairman of the extinguished road board failed to secure election to the council. The ward system is far from ideal, but its theoretical imperfections are no greater than the known deficiencies of the present system. There are good grounds for believing that division of the city into wards for the purpose of representation would be a valuable reform. It would induce men known in their own districts to offer their services; it would enable electors to vote with more informed discrimination ; and it should tend to a general improvement in the qualifications of the council as a whole for its functions. The ward system may be introduced by the council by a simple procedure, and, in view of its advantages, the subject should, receive sympathetic consideration by the new body.