The Opotiki News Tuesday, November 26, 1946. GENERAL ELECTION

Opotiki News, Volume IX, Issue 954, 26 November 1946, Page 2

The Opotiki News Tuesday, November 26, 1946. GENERAL ELECTION

To-morrow is election day when every person over the age of 21 years may exercise his or her privilege of voting for the candidate they so desire to represent them in Parliament. It I s not our intention to exhort our readers as to which candidate to vote for, as we. conclude their minds are made u,p as to what they will do. The issue is between two parties—the Labour Party and the National Party. In the last Parliament the Labour Party held the majority, but after-to-morrow it is hard to predict which party will' hold the reins of Government. The only thing upon which both parties agree is that it will be a very close contest. In the Bay of Plenty electorate we have two candidates, Mr. W. Sullivan, the sitting member (National) and Mr. It. Boord (Labour). Last election Mr. Sullivan had rather an easy victory over Mr. Jonasen (Labour) but to-morrow many people believe his task is going to be a harder proposition, as the. boundaries of the electorate have been materially changed. It is anticipated that a record poll will be held and returning officers- will have a strenuous time before the final returns will appear. It will be necessary for voters to record thenprivilege as early as possible to avoid congestion at the polling booths. In Opotiki there will be two booths, the Courthouse for those whose surnames commence with the letters A. to L. and the Parish Hall for those commencing from M. to Z. In addition to the Parliamentary election, electors vote on the liquor referendum and have the choice of three issues: National Continuance, State Control and National Prombition. It is not expected that any changes will eventuate, but rhere is a tendency for State Control to gain ground, and iigures taken from the past two elections show a decided increase. When it is taken into consideration that a majority must be secured over tlie other two- issues before a change can eventuate it can be seen that the position is somewhat secure for Cbntiiiuance, A feature that has been generally overlooked is that many people refrained from voting at all in the 1943 election. In the Westland electorate for instance 2000 less votes were recorded than in the 1.938 election. In Bay of Plenty some .1400 less electors exercised their privilege of voting. In Gisborne the drop was 1600 and in Rotorua 1300 lower. The same position obtained in many other electorates. It is also interesting to recall that some 150,000 people failed to vote on the liquorquestion last time although a big percentage of these voted for party candidates.