KAIAPOI ELECTION.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1744, 22 September 1879, Page 3

KAIAPOI ELECTION.

The Ministerialists profess to be muoh exercised on account of some imaginary informality in the roll of this district. The faots regarding the roll are these: —Thirty-one names sent it by a Road Board official to the registration officer who takes charge of the Kaiapoi and Ashley rolls, intended for the latter roll, were in error inserted in the former roll, and so, it is presumed, passed the revising officer also. A day or two, nowever, after the Kaiapoi rolls were printed, but before they were issued, the registration officer detected the mistake, and telegraphed to the Colonial Secretary's Office. Mr Gr. S. Cooper, Under Colonial Secretary, replied in effect that the names might be erased. This happened before the certified copy was sent to the Colonial Secretary's Office, or the rolls were issued. An addendum was made to the Ashley roll. Not a single one of the thirty-one persons wrongly included in the Kaiapoi roll claimed to vote at any of the booths. Further, the returning officer, we learn, was prepared to have allowed any one who claimed to vote to do so. The majority of them, however, did, as a matter of fact, vote in the Ashley district, therefore no one was disfranchised by this peouliar blunder. The Elections Act requires the returning officer to sign the corrected rolls on which the election is held. Supposing the thirty-one had voted, and given all their votes in favor of the Ministerial candidate, Mr Bowen's majority was sufficiently large to give him then fifty votes over his opponent.