The Evening Star. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1871.

Auckland Star, Volume II, Issue 348, 20 February 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1871.

The time for registration of names for the electoral rolls is passing away, and with the close of next month those who have the necessary qualifications and have not asserted their right to the franchise, will have but themselves to blame for their negligee cc. It may be that if some expenditure was necessary in acquiring a right to vote at elections, there would be less apathy manifested than now characterises the community in the matter of registration of electors' names. And it does seem remarkable that the great right of freemen to direct the course of legislation, by electing their legislators, which has been purchased at such a costly price, should so generally be thought so meanly of that it requires an annual effort of persuasion and expostulation to induce men to merely apply and obtain a boon, erstwhile so highly prized. And it is passing strange that of those who do make such application, the effort is often so negligently performed as to fail in its intentions. The most palpable mistakes are evidenced in a very large number of applications for enrolment; mistakes that must surely show great indifference regarding the result, lor example such an error as the following is the cause of a large number of applications proving informal. In filling in the name of the applicant he is directed to give the " name in full." But notwithstanding the plain directions given, very commonly the usual signature is given, and the applicant has but his .own negligence to blame in finding himself disqualified from voting.

It is further provided that the form of application must be signed in the presence of an " elector of the district, or the Registration Officer, or a Justice of the Peace ;" whereas a considerable number of applicants appear to be under the impression that the application is valid if signed in the presence of an elector of any district. Of course it; would be impossible to draw up a document, in the filling up of which some people would not find a means of going astray ; but the form of application and the whole process of registration are so simple, that it is the next thing to impossible for any one gifted with the ordinary modicum of common sense to make an error. The forms of application can be obtained from almost every printing office in the city ; and the man is undeserving of the enjoyment of civil liberty who shows himself so indifferent to the claims of good citizenship as to refuse the small tax of effort necessary in acquiring a right to vote in elections of members of the legislatures of the country.