The Wanganui Chronicle. "NULLA DIES SINE LINEA." WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1908 " BLUNDERS OF THE BALLOT.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume L, Issue 12145, 9 December 1908, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. "NULLA DIES SINE LINEA." WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1908 " BLUNDERS OF THE BALLOT.

In a recent article we drew attention to oi- rather emphasised, a doubt which is undeniably current in the public irind as to the secrecy of the ballot. The local- Resuming Officel 1, a ■ little hastily aaid ;quite. erroneously, assumed that our remarks- reflected upon his method of conducting the poll _in this electorate, and, in refutation of what he judged to be an unwarrantable aspersion/ he furnished us with a letter sotting out in detail the procedure which ho adopted in order to guard against any just cause for complaint. As we said at the. time, when accepting the Returning Officer's interesting und reassuring statement, the article to. which he took exception was not intended to have a purely local application. That there is reason for dissatisfaction, speaking generally, will scarcely bo questioned.. For- instance, as a southern contemporary points out, the curious discrepancies that have' been disclosed between the figures of the preliminary declarations of the results of the local option poll in certain districts and those of the official declarations will have /the effect of leading interested persons to receive with a good deal of reserve in future any but the final and authoritative returns. The public should, however, be entitled to expect, that tho official declaration shall, subject to the possible allowance or disallowance of votes respecting the validity of which the returning officer is in doubt, be absolutely to be relied upon as accurate. The development that has attended the recount under magisterial supervision of the votes in the Hutt licensing district will almost certainly have the effect of creating a demand that some attempt should ba made to introduce an improved method, mechan- ; ical or otherwise, of recordnig and counting tho votes "at these polls. The variations in the announcement of tho result of the poll in this district 'were quite singular. On the night on which the poll was taken the community was informed that no-ligense had been carried. Upon the completion of the examination of the papers, however, the returning officer announced that tho no-license party had failed by the narrow margin of four and four-fifth vote 3to effect ilia abolition of licenses in tho district. But this declaration took no account of the votes recorded by the holders of absent voters' permits, of which fifty-three had been issued. The actual number of these peririts that was exercised was forty-eight ropresrnting fourteen votes in favour of continuance,. two in favour of reduction, and thirty-seven in favour of no-license. And if the original count. had been accurate the effect of tho '

votes registered by the absent voters woiu'd have been the adoption of noliceiiso by a majority of four and fourlifth votes. Ikit the official declaration showed that, as compared with the preliminary declaration, the polling in, favour of continuance had increased not by fourteen votes but by forty votes, that the reduction vote had shrunk by ten, and the vote for, nolicenso had , increased by five- only. Finally, the effect of the recount in the presence of a stipendiary magistrate was, in comparison with the. ; figures'of the official declaration, while reducing the number of valid votes by one and increasing the number of info'rinal votes by two, to decrease the poll in favour of continuance by twenty-seven and to increase that in favtrtirof reduction and of no-license in each case by twenty- | four. This alteration in the figures is apparently explained almost entirely by tbo fact that the returning officer, who, to expedite the^process of counting, followed the device of placing the ballot papers in bundles of one hun- , died, had included in one parcel twenty-two votes for reduction and rioiicense! It woifid seem, moreover, that this was not the only instance the Hutt local option poll provided of a mistake on the part of an official^ for "eleven votes which the returning officer had admitted as valid were disallowed i by tho magistrate on the ground that they were the votes of either illiterate or blind people, and that the deputy returning officer, instead of signing the papers, as required by the"""Act,'.'.had' merely initialled 'them; This latter ■ raistako, which was one, therefore, ..of ijrnoranco and not of inadvertence, "was •clearly serious, since it had the effect of disfranchising the electors who cast J-ho votes. Then again, it is an open I «.ocvet that the method of dealing with i c.bsent voters' ballot papers have in some instances been exceedingly careless, so much so as to render it easily possib'e for tho officials to ascertain . for whom somo of the absent voters voted. This is a matter which calls Co? official investigation, with a view \o preventing the recurrence of similar blunders. Another cause of complaint which has been brought under our notic3 by an experienced deputy, is tho thinness of the paper of which«the Parliamentary ballot papers are made It would bo easily possible, he says, foT anyone wishing to do so to hold a ballot paper up to-the light and read the number of the voter jvhich is supposed to bo concealed by the turning down of tho corner of the paper on which the number is-written. He does not sug-

g?sfc that' any advantage is taken of this fact; but he contends, and rightly, that tho paper ought ta be of such a texture as to render anything of tho kind impossible. It is clear that errors and, weaknesses of the kind to which we have alluded retire attention, and that tlio ballot will not bo entirely satisfactory and wholly free from suspicion until adequate steps have ljeen taken -to provide the necessary safeguards. . , ~ ~,."_ ,'.""', /-