THE CITY ELECTORAL ROLL.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5661, 22 May 1879, Page 2

THE CITY ELECTORAL ROLL.

ELECTORS DISFRANCHISED. A question of considerable importance arose during the sittings of the Revision Court yesterday. Under the Registration of Electors Act 1874 it has been the custom for the clerks of governing bodies to make up each year an alphabetical list of ratepayers within the jurisdiction of such local bodies, and forward it to the revising officer, in order that he may, in terms of the Act as it was supposed, place the names contained in the list on the electoral rolls for the district. The’clause under which this has been done is the 3rd, and runs thus : On Slat day in the month of March in every year, or if that day fall on a Sunday, then on the thirtieth day of the sod mon h, the clerk of every governing body shall compile an alphabetical list of all these persona being males of twenty-one years or upwards, who shall have been assessed to and shall have made payment of any rate struck by such governing body in respect of r? -ble property situate in an electoral district within the year ending on the thirtieth day of March then instant. ■ It has always been supposed that under that clause the revising officer would place on the electoral roll all names included in the list not already on the roll, but Mr. Fitzherbert says there is ■ a flaw in the Act in that it is not provided that the addresses, property qualification, &c., of the ratepayers shall be included in the list, and he declines to tajie any notice of a list which does not give the full particulars. He holds that as no provision is made for this in the Act of 1874 he is bound to require that the schedule attached to the Act of 1866 shall be followed." The sth clause of the Act of IS/4 is as follows The registration officer of every electoral district shall, on the receipt "of such lists, accept and deal with the same as claims to be inserted on the list of voters for the electoral distr ct. as if the same had been made in {he form prescribed by the Registration

of Electors Act, 180*5. and all the provisions of such la't-mentioned Act shall, subject to this Act. be applicable to the registration by t s us Act provided for. Possibly the registration officer thinks that tinker this clause he must require the Town to make out, not merely a bare alphabetical list, but a list in the form prescribe ! by the Act of 1866. If so, we confess his dictum is beyond us, and while not desiring to dispute the correctness of Mr. Fitzherbert’s law, would point out that the evident intention of the Legislature was to accept the fact of a man being a ratepayer as a sufficient qualification for reg-strati’m, and that the presence of his name on the electoral roll should be as good a claim as if he had made a formal claim in the form prescribed by the Act of 1566. The registration officer says he has repeatedly warned the municipal officers that he would not accept such a list as that sent in yesterday, while the municipal officers stoutly deny they ever before heard of an objection to the lists in the form in which they have always been prepared. Whoever may be in the wrong, the public has suffered, because a large number of people must necessarily have been disfranchised. j\lore will be heard of the matter when the next city election comes on, and perhaps previously.