VOTES FOR ELEPHANTS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 202, 19 April 1932, Page 7

VOTES FOR ELEPHANTS

INDIAN ILLITERACY CAUSES DIFFICULTIES OYER FRANCHISE. PURDAH AND OTHER PROBLEMS NEW DELHI. The vast number of illiterate voters in India is providing a first-class problem for the Franchise Committee of the Round Table Conference. This has always been an acute difficulty, but the possibility of a big increase of such voters enhances it considerably. The committee, sitting at New Delhi, under the Marquis of Lothian, is already face to face with the position. How, for instance, is the illiterate voter going to give his choice to his favourite candidate without making a mistake ? Various devices have hitherto been adopted to assit him. Those have taken the form, of pictorial symbols on the ballot paper — a tiger, umbrella, bicycle, scales, or an elephant have variously indicated the names of particular candidates. Different coloured ballot-boxes have also been used. Pictorial Symbols. Other points which will tax the ingenuity of the committee are: — How to secure the identity of the voters to prevent impersonating; to what extent it will be possible, or desirable, to maintain the seerecy of the ballot, whether, if the franchise is widely extended, arrangements could be made to hold the election on a single day. Another particular local problem is whether separate polling booths are required for women. Thus, it will be seen that purdah has added to the many complications. It is felt that a solution must necessarily be reached if any future elections are not to lose prestige. It may not be realised in England how large a proportion of the electors might be totally illiterate or how difficult it is to grapple satisfactorily with the problem. It is understood „that the work of drafting a constitution will be begun as soon as the franchise committee reports on the material collected during its present tour, even thought it may be necessary to make further inquiries later.