The Standard AND PEOPLE'S ADVOCATE. (PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY.) WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 17, 1875.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 325, 17 November 1875, Page 2

The Standard AND PEOPLE'S ADVOCATE. (PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY.)

WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 17, 1875.

" We shall sell to no man justice or right: We shall deny to no man justice or right : We shall defer to no man justice or right.”

An Act to amend the law relating to the registration of electors was passed during the last session of Parliament; but like most of the enactments of our Collective Wisdom, it is not sufficiently explicit for its purpose, although it is, doubtless, an improvement upon the old mode of registration. The Government would do well to employ a competent Parliamentary draughtsman to frame their laws, so that they might be put into what the Yankees would term such “ understoodable language ” as would enable the public to comprehend them. The community are supposed to possess some knowledge, at least, of the laws that are added to our Statute Book from time to time, in order that they may be obeyed ; but when, to use a common phrase, it requires “ a Philadelphia lawyer” tointerpret them aright, we do not wonder that they are frequently violated from sheer ignorance of their real purport. New Zealand seems to excel in the employment of redundant verbiage and obscurity of diction in its Acts of Parliament; and even those who are proficients in legal lore, are sometimes at a loss as to what construction should be put upon certain portions of those Acts. This difficulty has, we must admit, beset our own path in endeavoring to interpret the clauses of the Act under review which most concern the electors, and which ought to be placed before the public in intelligible language free from any ambiguity. By the third section of the Act, governing bodies such as Municipal Corporations, Boards of Commissioners, and Highway or Road Boards, have power, to act as Registration Officers, for the respective cities, boroughs, or districts, over which they exercise control; and are required to prepare lists of all male persons, over twenty-one years of age, residing therein, and entitled to vote; and to forward the same to the Registration Officer for the electoral district within which the city, borpugh, or highway or road district, or other division of the colony, under the control of such governing bodies, shall be situated, on or before the seventh day of April in each year — the lists to be compiled not later than the 31st day of March in each year. In accordance with this Act the compilation of a list of the electors in the Poverty Bay district devolves upon the clerk or secretary of the local Highway Board, who, after authenticating the document by his own signature, must obtain the counter-signa-ture of the Chairman of the Board to it, and then forward the list so authenticated to the Registration Officer for the East Coast electorate, who must treat it as a bona fide list of all persons eligible to vote in the district whence it emanates. The fifth section happens, strange to say, to be explicit enough on this point. It says : —“ The Registration “ Officer of every electoral district “ should on recept of such lists accept “ and deal with the same as claims to “ be inserted on the list of voters for “ the electoral district, as effectually as “ if the same had been made in the “ form prescribed by the ‘ Registration “ of Electors Act, 1866,’ and all the “ provisions of such last mentioned “Act shall, subject to this Act, be “ applicable to lie Registration by “this Act provided for.” By the sixth and seventh sections, it is expressly declared that no parson possessing more than one qualification, in the same electoral district, shall possess or exercise any greater or other number of votes within such electoral distrietthan hewould'if he had possessed only one qualification; and anyone possessed of the qualification aforesaid, and duly registered, shall be entitled to vote in the election of a member or members of the House of Representatives for the electoral district in respect of which such person

is qualified. Clerks of governing bodies wilfully neglecting to comply with the provisions of this Act, or knowingly falsifying, in any particular, any list of electors, are liable to a fine not exceeding £lOO, for wilful neglect, and to imprisonment not exceeding twelve calendar months, for falsification.

Another Act, entitled “An Act to “ qualify persons living in lodgings to “ vote at the election of members of the “ House of Representatives, and to en- “ able such persons to be registered “ on the Electoral Roll” was also passed during the last session, which is, if possible, more ambiguously worded than the other Registration Act. The qualifications required are —1. That the lodger is of full age, and not subject to any legal incapacity. 2. That as a lodger he has occupied in the same electoral district, separately, and as a sole tenant, for twelve months, preceding the last day of December in any year, the same lodgings, such lodgings being part of one and the same dwelling house, and of a clear yearly value, if let unfurnished, of £lO or upwards. 3. That he has resided in such lodgings during- tjfo. twelve months immediately preceding the last day of December in such year, and has claimed to be registered as a voter at the next ensuing registration of voters. - Persons claiming to be allowed to vote under this Act must make application to the Returning. Officer of the district in regard toj which they claim to be entitled tol vote, according to a prescribed form. I The most absurd part of this Act is,l that according to the second qualifica-l tion, not more than one lodger in any I lodgings can claim the privileges of al voter ; so that if there happens to be! a dozen lodgers in one house only one I of them can exercise the franchise.! Lodgers, therefore, in order to qualify 1 themselves as electors, must occupy separate lodgings—an anomaly which renders the Act one of the most ridiculous measures that ever received the sanction of law in a British colony; and, therefore, requires to be amended. According to the first of these Acts the Electoral Rolls for the ensuing year will not be compiled till the 31st March next, which delay will . deprive the country of a large amount of voting power at the general election, which takes place before the new rolls can possibly be used. Were the rolls to be made up at the end of the year, they would be available at the forthcoming election ; and why this has not been done is a good reason for public dissatisfaction on the subject.