Strange Excuses

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 440, 23 August 1928, Page 1

Strange Excuses

Electors Who Ask to be Put on “Electrical” Roll HUMOUR OF NON-VOTERS *T want to get on the electrical roll.” During the last few weeks this has been a constant request made by electors to officials in the office of the Registrar of Electors. The confusion between “electrical” and “electoral” has been astonishing. But then the general public does astonishing things—particularly during election time. For instance, only • last week one woman did not know whether she was married or single. When her registration card was being examined in the registrar’s office the officials found that she had not stated whether she was married, widow or spinster. A clerk inquired her status over the telephone, and the staggering reply came back over the wire: “I haven’t seen the old devil for the last 20 years. How do I know whether I’m married or single?” Then there are the people who attach facetious remarks to their registration cards. One elderly dame, with a sense of humour, filled in her card as follows: “Spinster, 72, and still hoping!” After each election, when the cards of the non-voters are checked, a notice is sent to each person by the registrar objecting to his or her names being on the rolls on the grounds that they did not exercise their vote. This always brings a flood of amusing excuses to the registrar’s office. Last year one man wrote that he had had a “droppy of Johnny Walker” on polling day and that he had gone to sleep. When he woke the polling booths had closed. “I will try to do better next time,” he added. One woman gave a very good excuse. “I did not vote because on the day previous I gave birth to twins. They are now both down with whooping cough, and this made me forget to answer your last letter,” she wrote. And the registrar had no option but to excuse her. Another voter explained that the door of the polling booth had been shut in his face. The irate female who wrote that “she didn’t take any interest in politics and didn’t know anything about them,” was at least telling the truth, but hundreds of her sex use their voting prerogative even though they are in the same position “I don’t care a damn what you do. I am working in a logging camp 200 miles from Eden,” was the bald expression of a resident of the Eden electorate. Politics apparently had no interest for him. Brief and to the point came the excuse from one voter who had broken the law: “In gaol, Mount Eden. No time to vote.” Still another wrote in a faded, wandering hand: “I might be going West any time.” It is amazing the number of people who refuse to vote on religious r»~ciples. They have no desire to assist any party into power or out oi it accept the laws as they come, regardless of who makes them.