MUNICIPAL ROLLS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21985, 21 June 1933, Page 6

MUNICIPAL ROLLS

Under the Municipal Corporations Act it is provided that any person who is not an elector is incapable of being elected to be or of being a councillor. It was in reliance on this, and on other provisions of the Act which relate to the raising of objections to the district electors’ list or roll, that representations were made to the Christchurch City Council concerning the status as city electors of three persons recently elected to that body, the suggestion being that they had been irregularly enrolled - . As an outcome of an inquiry instituted by a Committee of the Council a report has been presented which vindicated the position of the Rev. J. K. Archer in respect of his enrolment, but, for reasons that have not been indicated, made no reference to the position of the other members of the Council the inclusion of whose names in the district electors’ roll was the subject of objection. The inquiry may be judged to have served a useful purpose, if only in view of the recommendations by which tlie report was accompanied. The most important of these is to the effect that the supplementary rolls should be open to inspection immediately after their closing date —which is fourteen days before the poll—and that three days should be allowed after that for the lodging of objections which should be heard and determined by a magistrate. The value of some such provision as this must be fairly apparent. It rests upon the desirability of the institution of greater

safeguards than exist at present against the inclusion on the roll of names that should not be there. The existing provision in respect of enrolment lends itself to abuse. It is the duty of the Town Clerk to enter on the district electors’ list the name of every person who, to his knowledge, possesses qualification as an elector, or who in the prescribed form makes claim to be so entered. The looseness of thi§ system is sufficiently manifest. It is impossible that the Town Clerk should have personal knowledge of the qualifications of the applicants for enrolment who may not make claim in the prescribed form. Provision is made under the Act for the lodging of objections to the district electors’ roll into which it is incumbent on the City Council to make inquiry. But clearly this procedure does not meet all the possibilities of the case or the points that have been raised. Two other recommendations submitted by the committee of the Christchurch Council are to the effect, that every candidate for election should have to make a formal declaration of qualification under the Justices of the Peace Act, and that after the closing of nominations three days should be allowed in which objections may be lodged against them and that these should be heard and determined by a magistrate. It may be suggested that the main consideration is to ensure that the rolls shall not contain names that are not entitled to be there, and that if such a result is secured the present looseness of the procedure that is required under the Act will be sufficiently corrected. Its other recommendations, however, indicate that the committee of the Christchurch Council has recognised the desirability of the introduction of safeguards that will close some of the loopholes for evasion of the intentions of the Act in relation to municipal elections. The abuse to which the privilege of voting by declaration is exposed did not come within its order of reference. But it seems clear to us that the provision for use of a declaratory vote opens the door to grave irregularities, and that an amendment of the Act in- this particular is highly necessary.