NEW VOTING PAPER.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20088, 3 May 1927, Page 8

NEW VOTING PAPER.

CAUSE OF CONFUSION. DISSATISFIED RETURNING OFFICER. (Special to Daily Times.) CHRISTCHURCH, May 2. The more the returning officer (Mr Albert Freeman) sees of the checking of votes in the election of councillors to the Christchurch City Council, the less does he like the new voting paper prescribed by the Act for the occasion, and the system of voting by crossing out the name* of the candidates not wanted he considers to be the worst he has seen. This is from a returning officer’s point of view, of course. “The system stands condemned out of its own mouth, as it were,” he said today. “It is a negative form of voting, and although the principle is good, in practice it is a failure. In a case such as voting for the mayor, or in which there are only three or four names to ba dealt with, it is all right ; but when there is a paper containing 34 names, and 16 or fewer have to be left in. it is the very devil.” Never before has there been such a large -percentage of informal votes in a Christchurch muncipal election, for over 4000 people have invalidated their papers, and the officials who are counting the papers find that many people have but a vague idea of the meaning of the phrase “crossing out.” Indistinct and irregular obliterating marks have been the cause of much delay. Mr Freeman suggested that a better method than crossing out would be for voters to place numerals opposite the names, each vote given, of course, to hare equal value. This would enable the voter to ascertain easily that no more than the number of councillors required had been voted for. As to the voting paper, the returning officer pointed ore that the old paper which set out each name between lines and gave a square at the side for the cross, was easier to follow than the new one, as it brought each name preeminently before the voter.