UNDERGROUND DRAINAGE.

Timaru Herald, Volume XC, Issue 13299, 30 May 1907, Page 6

UNDERGROUND DRAINAGE.

COMPLAINT AGAINST THE POLL

To the Editor of the " Timaru Herald." Sir, —Representations have reached mi! from various persons re underground drainage in Timaru, cited by reliable authority that the provisions of the voting Act have been grossly subverted, inasmuch as a number of persons who had no legal votes, either through ignorance or wiliully, recorded votes which they had no legal right to do. For instance, one female in Rose street who is only a tenant voted on the drainage, and one man voted in two wards while he only held property in one. Will you be so good as po publish this letter, as a number of bona fide ratepayers intend calling a public meeting at once, and do all we can to subvert the election. By .inserting the above you will oblige hundreds'. ' . '

I am, etc., JAAIES TONER LeCren street, Timaru, 29/5/07.

Spoken to with reference to the assertion made in the- above letter, the Town Clerk said that the officials who conducted the poll on the drainage loan had been carefully instructed in their duties, and he did not* think it likely that non-ratepayers had been allowed to vote on the question. Possibly there might have been an odd case of that sort, but the irregularity, if any existed, would not have been sufficient to affect the result .of the poll, in which there was a large majority in favour of the loan. Mr Virtue added 1 that under the Local Elections Act of 1904, protests against a poll must be made within fourteen days after it was taken, so that the time had gone by for objecting to the drainage poll.