THE ELECTION

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 76, 23 December 1919, Page 6

THE ELECTION

OFFICIAL COUNTS PROCEEDING. Official counts of the votes east at the cenoral election arc now proceeding in manv districts., but up to last night nono of tho resilts had reached tho Chief Electoral Officer Several seats where tho margin of votes is narrow will remain in doubt, until (ho absentee votes have been allotted in the official counts. Returning officers do not begin the. official counts until all the voting papers for thoir electorates havo reached them. This involves delay in somo cases. A. Wellington returning officer, for example, inav have received a telegram on election dav stating that an absent voter's permit issued by him had been used in Wallace or Bay of Islands. Ho cannot make the official count until this voting raner has reached him by post. A MAJORITY REDUCED. By Telegraph—Press Association. Timaru, December 22, The receipt of additional absentee rotes reduced Mr. Burnett's majority orer Mr. Talbot for tho Temuka teat, from 35 to 29. The official count is in progress. > , IRREGULARITIES ALLEGED. t By TelegrskDh-Pms Association. Dunedln, December 22. The official count for Dunedin South has been completed, and shows tho voting to bo as follows:— •T. K. Sidoy (Lib.) 4381 J. T. Paul (Lab.) 4304

Majority for Sidey 77 Informal -.' 125 In connection with this election Mr. W. B. Clarke, scrutineer for the Hon. J, T. Paul, hns forwarded a communication to the Chief Electoral Officer alleging certain irregularities during the recount of votes and the counting of absent votes. It is understood that legal advice is to bo obtained to decide whether steps 6hould be taken in ttro Supreme Court to have the election declared void. Mr. Clarke's lettor alleges that on his attending tho returning officer's office at 9 a.m. on the 19th. the place and hour appointed for tho official recount, he found that seventeen parcels of ballot papers had been opened, and Bomo four thousand papers, numbered arithmetically, anil such parcels had not been again 6ealed. Theso parcels had been opened on the previous day, and been left overnight in .unsealed bundles. It is also alleged that certain hallot papers had been tampered with hy 'tho returning officer to tho extent of opening tho sealed corners of such ballot papers, thereby disclosing the identity of tho voter; that an unlocked and unsealed ballot box had been used to receive and retain the absent voters' ballot papers; that the whole proceeding of opening tho parcels and counting tho votes without giving written notice to the candidate or his scrutineer was a breach of tho Legislature Act; that scrutiny of the rolls should, in accordance with the Legislature Act, have been , precedent to the counting of votes.