New Voting System Is Not Popular

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 35, 4 May 1927, Page 1

New Voting System Is Not Popular

WELLINGTON CRITICISM “SLOW AND INEFFECTIVE” Press Association WELLINGTON, Tuesday. At the recent municipal elections there were 2,767 informal ballot papers. Commenting upon this very high figure, the chief returning officer, Mr. Perry, remarked that this one experiment with the crossing-out system of voting should surely be sufficient to demonstrate that it was not at all suitable in the case of municipal elections. “ It is all very well and sound in the case of Parliamentary elections,” he continued, “ for there the voter has to signify his preference for one candidate, but in all elections where the voter is required to express preference for more than one candidate, then the displaced system of marking by a cross is in my opinion the only feasible system. “ These two thousand odd informal votes were, with very few exceptions, careful votes, but not quite careful enough—that is the elector left in one name too many, in some cases two. Now and again we came across papers on which no vote at all was recorded, but these were a decided exception. Apart from the real difficulty of going down a long list of names and marking out the right number of unwanted names the system is far too slow, and had the weather been favourable and a really big vote been recorded the polling booths would simply not have been able to accommodate the electors. I am very definitely of t.ie opinion that the new system is not as good as the old.”