HOW TO REGISTER.

Patea Mail, Volume VI, Issue 516, 6 May 1880, Page 2

HOW TO REGISTER.

To remove doubts about the ;form of registration on the parliamentary doctoral roll, a few facts may be stated. We arc asked to answer these questions: Can electors be enrolled at any time ? and is re-registration necessary ? Firstly, as to the time for sending in claims, this may be done at any period, and the registrar for the district is required by the Act to receive and enter all new claims that appear good. The electoral roll for the present year closed at the cud of April; but that makes no practical difference in the value of new claims, for these may and must be received whenever presented, and they aic to be published in a supplementary roll so soon as an election in the district is due. If a casual vacancy occurred in this electoral district, a supposition which Major Atkinson will receive with incredulous smile, a supplementary roll would have to be compiled and issued as soon as the vacancy became known, and this roll should contain all good and regular claims sent in after the first roll had been made up to the end of April. That supplementary roll would then have to be revised, and objections to names would be heard in the ordinary way. Upon that register of voters, including the first roll and the supplementary roll, the election would take place. The same process applies to a general election, a supplementary list being then prepared at short notice in like manner.

Is rc-rcgistration necessary ? Tills question is nuich asked in Paten County, and we may set doubts at rest by stating that any elector on the roll under the old Act need not re-register under the new law. danse 18 enacts that the registrar, or any elector for a district, may object to the name of any person being retained on the roll, “ by giving notice in writing to the person objected to,” in a form prescribed in one of the schedules. 'No elector’s name can be so struck off without a notification being addressed to him stating that his qualification is objected to, and that the objection is to be-heard at a certain time and place The name stands on the new roll as it did on the old, unless and until notice of objection be received. -There need be no anxiety about re-registration. Good names remain undisturbed. If, however, a property qualification have changed hands, fresh registration upon a new tion becomes .necessary ; and that new qualification may, of course, Jbe either residence or property,' U,

A registrar may place an elector’s name on the roll, without any application, if the registrar know that such elector is duly qualified ; for the Act enjoins that it is a registrar’s duty “to make the foil as complete as possible, and with that object from time to time to place thereon, or add thereto,, the name of every persomof whoso qualification as an elector lie is satified.” Registrars do not, as a ride, take the intiativc in registering voters. It is the voter’s plain duty to look to his own registration. That colonists can be indifferent to such duty, that they can deliberately shut 'their eyes to public affairs, that they can leave the machinery of government to go of itself as a thing that affects neither comfort nor pocket, is 100 absurd a supposition. There are stirring times ahead. Settlers should look to the register, for many tilings indicate that “ w« know not what a day may bring forth.” .