SERIOUS COMPLAINTS.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1738, 1 May 1913, Page 6

SERIOUS COMPLAINTS.

GRAVE DEFECTS IN THE ROLLS. ISLAND BAY ALLEGATIONS. Serious complaints against tlio polling arrangements at Island Bay are made by Mr. 11. G. Hill, president of the Island Bay Municipal Electors' Association. ifr. Hill states that tho booth accommodation provided yesterday was totally inadequate, and during the morning electors were in some cases compelled to wait three-quarters of an hour before they could record their votes. At previous elections it has been customary to provide two booths for Island Bay, one at tho school and the other at St. Hilda's Hall. Yesterday, for sumo reason or other, the schoolroom alone was called into use, and the staff consisted of a poll clerk and two assistants.

' Mr. H;ll says that the complaints about the congestion in the booths were so general that he rang up Mr. AmeS, tho returning officer, and complained to him of the state of affairs. As a result, three more officials wero sent out at about midday.

In the afternoon there were two compartments available in which the electors could mark their papers, but the accommodation was totally inadequate, and Mr. Hill says he entered the booth at one time and found nine people in tho schoolroom with their ballot-papers scattered over the desks, filling them in without any privacy whatever.

Mr. Hill directed tho attention of the ofticer in charge to the fact that a man was in one of the voting compartments instructing his wifo how to fill in her papers. This tho officer stopped. The Island Bay Municipal Electors' Association is making formal complaint to the returning officer of the conditions at tlio polling booth, and is also complaining of the state of the rolls as revealed by yesterday's election. Mr. Hill says that the names of both himself and his wife appear twice on the roll. In one case his occupation is given as "butter merchant," and in the second as "labouieiv"

The names of a man and his wifo are still on the roli, though they have been away from Wellington for at least two yearn. Another man whose name was on the roll as it stood before being reprinted, signed an enrolment form for his wife, as a burgess is entitled to do. In the new Toll the wife's name duly appears, but the husband's is omitted, and the question therefore arises whether the wife is legally enrolled.

Two cafes were reported in which a husband had handed in his wife's enrolment form together with his own, and now found only his own name, oil Hit roll, the wives in both cases losing their franchise rights

One batch of seven persons who came to vote at the same time found (hat none of their names were on the roll, although from their statements each had apparentlv taken all the necessary steps to secure enrolment. Mr. Hill says that at West Beach he himself found six cases . where residents had dulv recorded their votes at last year's election, but were now no longer on the roll. Altogether, he had heard during the day of 60 cases at the' 1 Island Bay booth of persons who had been debarred from voting, in consequence, apparently, of no fault of their own, but solely of defects in the compilation of the roll.