ELECTION LESSONS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17032, 4 May 1923, Page 8

ELECTION LESSONS.

TOWN CLERK’S VIEW. TOO MANY SYSTEMS. “ Work in connection with the nxnnioipal elections has been extremely onerous,’’ said the Town Clerk (Mr H. R. Smith) in an interview to-day, 1 and. under the very best circumstances, it must be highly expensive, owing to the large staff employed to reckon up the votes with reasonable dispatch. About 260 people were employed at the various booths on polling day ” Mr Smith, who has had many years experience of municipal life, said that it was perfectly clear to him that many ratepayers were nonplussed by the multiplicitv of the issues upon which they were ' expected to vote, especially as there were three different methods of marking the paper- For J he election of Mayor, for instance, the elector had to put a cross in a square on the Tight hand side opposite the name of the candidate for whom he desired to vote. In the City Council election, conducted under the system of proportional representation, the electors had to put figures in the squares on the left hand side of the paper .marking 1,2. 3. etc., in accordance with the preference they held towards each candidate. The leading direction under this system was that the voter must not strike out. the name of any candidate, although there was a proviso in the law permitting any paper so marked with clearness to lie accepted. The ballot papers for the City Council election contained thirty-one name®, which in his opinion was much too many to have in one constituency, especially as sixteen out of the thirty-on? candidates were to be elected. Similar remarks applied to the Hospitil Board and Harbour Board elections, in which there was no limit to the number of candidates who could be nominated. “ The election of sixteen people on one paper it in my opinion too great a number,” continued Mr Smith. “It must not be forgotten that the recent election was probably the biggest of its kind ever held in one constituency, and as Christchurdh grows this'’ will be accentuated if the present system is continued. The City of Christchurch embraces the Parliamentary constituencies of Christchurch North, Christchurch East and Christchurch South, part of Lyttelton, part of Avon, and part of Kaiapoi, each of which has a separate returning officer at the Parliamentary election. In the municipal elections* there is only one for a huge area.. “In the loan proposal, the law provided that a ratepayer must strike out one of the lines, and so vote for or against. In this case a considerable muonber of jnifofrmail papers were blank—they had been put in the ballotbox without a mark of any description. However. 1 thinki that on the whole the electors exhibited a great deal of common sense in handling such a multiplicity of papers. ‘‘ For future polls. I consider there should be no difference in the system of marking papers for a loan proposal and for a mayoral election. There should be the same system for each.” ”In regard to ballot papers for issues conducted under proportional representation. do you think the candidates whose name* begin with A. B or C have an advantage, and that half the papers should be printed the other way round, beginning, sav, with W, Y, or Z ? ” ‘“That is a big question,” replied Mr Smith. “ It is one for Parliament, i certainly think that candidates whose names begin with A. B or C have an advantage. There is little doubt on that point.”