The Waipa Post Printed on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1925. THE ELECTION TIES.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1690, 24 November 1925, Page 4

The Waipa Post Printed on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1925. THE ELECTION TIES.

“ I SEE that ‘ Pro Bono Publico ’ and ‘ Elector’ and a dozen other authorities have started a correspondence battle in the city papers on the ethics of how a returning officer should cast his vote,” said a local resident yesterday when called upon for his view of political questions of the day. He went on to express the opinion that Parliamentary procedure applied to such things was “ utter rubbish,” and that if a returning officer was a human be--ing of full electoral age he should be entitled to lodge his vote just as he deemed fit. ’Our representative remarked that tJhe Hon. A. D. McLeod was apparently of the same opinion, for he had lately stated that if it was incumbent upon a returning officer to follow Parliamentary custom by giving his vote, when a tie occurred, to preserve the existing; state of affairs, an all-lwise Parliament would long ago have specifically provided for it in the legislation covering Parliamentary elections. In any case, why should not the returning officers exercise their own votes just as they considered best? lAny suggestion that the disposal by these officials of tiheir votes was the outcome of a malign conspiracy to punish the Labour party and to destroy or weaken its claim to recognition as the official Opposition in the new House might be regarded as unworthy pf serious consideration. The Labour party claimed that Parliamentary procedure should have been followed, but it might pertinently be remarked that the same party did not usually profess a great deal of respect for precedent; but it desired to rely upon it now that it suited its purpose to do so. In Parliamentary practice, no doubt, and in the conduct of business in all local bodies, precedent dictates that in the event of the votes for and against any proposal being equal, the casting vote of authority shall be so cast as not to disturb the existing conditions. The argument upon which this procedure is based is that the effect of such an exercise of the casting vote is to leave the whole question that has been in debate open to further consideration. But the precedent which has established this rule is not one that is strictly applicable to the case of a tie in the polling for the election of a member of Parliament a contemporary. dealing -with the matter, says: We are not to be understood as holding that the ends of political justice lhave been secured in the best possible manner by the way in which the Lyttelton and Westland elections .have been decided. It would have been more fortunate if the returning officers, acting independently as they necessarily did, had so exercised their votes that one of the two Labour candidates, who have been excluded from Parliament, lhad been returned. 'But to assert that in both Lyttelton and Westland the Labour candidates should," by reason of some fancied precedent, have received the benefit of the casting votes of the returning officers, is to exhibit a misapprehension respecting the provisions of the law as well as respecting the constitutional practice. Even although they may be electors of the districts in which they are serving the public the returning officers are expressly prohibited from exercising their votes except in the case of a tie between two or more of the candidates.

The explanation of this prohibition is simple. It is that a returning officer shall not be put in a position in which he may conceivably exercise two votes. Otherwise the principle of “one'man one vote ” would he violated. The law provides, therefore, that a returning officer shall not vote except in the event of a tie. The effect of this is that his vote is held in suspense, to he exercised only in such an event. In that case, if he does not draw lots to decide the course he shall pursue, he exercises what may be called 'his deliberative vote, which he casts in the manner that is prompted by his personal conviction. If it were not contemplated that the returning officer should, in the case of a tie, use his own discretion as to how he should vote, the law would prescribe the course he

should follow. The law, however, is silent on the subject, and the returning officer records his vote just as any other elector does, with the important difference that he gives an open vote, while every other elector has the inestimable advantage of voting by ballot.

The only suggestion for bettering the position that appeals to us is that each of the eighty returning officers at the Parliamentary eleetiohs should record their votes on polling day, seal each, and have it placed aside for use in the eventuality of a tie. That would surely remove any imputation that the officer had been influenced in his judgment by the public opinion expressed at the polls outside the particular electorate concerned. The effect of the results of the Lyttelton and Westland elections is to reduce the strength of the Labour party in Parliament to eleven members, and to raise a very nice point as to whether it or the National party will be entitled to rank as the official Opposition in the new Parliament. The declared members of the National party number ten only, but if Sir Joseph Ward, who has retained the old title of Liberal, and Mr Atmore, who is an Independent Liberal, elect to ally themselves with the National party, it would seem that the members of the Labour party must still remain content with occupancy of the cross benches in which they sat in the last two Parliaments.