THE WAITOMO SEAT.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 January 1923, Page 5

THE WAITOMO SEAT.

STATEMENTS IN PETITION. REJECTION OF DECLARATORY. VOTES. A Wellington Times reporter was on Tuesday informed that the statement made that Mr W. T. Jennings (Liberal) had no intention of petitioning the Supreme Court against the return of Mr J. C. Rolleston (Reform) was entirely devoid of fact. This was proved (by the fact that a petition had’ boon in course of preparation, and was presented to the returning officer at Te Kuiti last week.

Amongst a very large number of grounds for objection, the more important ones are against the decision of the magistrate in his finding that all declaratory votes.were to be rejected; that valid votes received after the declaration of the poll had not been included in the count; that the returning officer and some of his deputies had failed to carry out the provisions of the Act; and generally that the poll was conducted so irregularly that it is now impossible to say Whether it gives a true account of the result. The number of votes lost by Mr. Jennings through the decision of the magistrate to disallow all declaratory votes was 48, not 45 as previously stated, while Mr. Rolleston lost 29, thus Mr Jennings, on the aggregate, was a loser of 19, which, added to the 6 he was previously behind, makes the total of 25.