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Patea Mail, Volume V, Issue 453, 27 August 1879, Page 2

The Electoral Rolls of the colony are in a disgraceful muddle, and the guilty party—be he the Revising Officer or Registration Officer—should be brought to book. We need only select the Egmont District Electoral Roll as a sample of what reliance is to be placed on those whose duty it is too see that everything is right. We find, on looking over the Roll, that names which have been posted in the R.M. Court-room for objections, in accordance with law, and which have been forwarded to New Plymouth (not objected to), do not appear on the Roll. Then wo find names on the Roll that have no right whatever to be there—some of the individuals being dead, whilst others claim votes on land that has passed out of their hands years ago Why is the country put to the expense of Revising Officers, if not to rectify every year the Electoral Rolls of the colony? If a piece of land changes hands within the year, that change is recorded In the Registry Office of the district, and it is clearly the duty of those connected with the compilingjof Rolls to find out who is entitled to vote and who is not. But no trouble seems to be taken, for year after year we find the same names appearing, no matter what changes have taken place. A man’s name spelt wrong may be nothing to a Revising Officer, but it means a great deal to the individual who is thus debarred from giving his vote —for we contend that names wrongly spelt disfranchise a man. Many instances of the above are to be found in the Rolls, and in some cases entirely different—that is to say, with the addition or leaving out of a few letters —names are substituted for the right ones. Surely something should be done to rectify this abominable state of things, and we trust that the new Parliament will not lose sight of the matter.