POLLING DAY EPISODE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 185, 15 January 1915, Page 4

POLLING DAY EPISODE.

INTEUmiDisCE WITH A VOTER. A FINE INFLICTED. By Telegraph.—Per Press Association. Auckland, Last Night. People who do not know 'how to vote are liable to get their friends into trouble, on polling day. An instance of tins occurred sl»t teetioii day, .wliijii resulted in Harold K. Simpson, the licensee of the Alexandra Hotel, being charged before Mr E. 0. Cutten, 6.M., Wilis morning, that, at the Sailors' Mission Hall |.ol!ing booth, W1 election day, lie- interfered with « voteX by advisiri" I'cr how to vote. Tile defendant did not appear, .rid S'emor-Sergt. Rutledgo seated' I bat when the defendant was driving a motor car down Hooson street on election day 'he noticed an old woman standing at a window. He- beckoned to her, and eventually went to Uie hous.> ajid took h,>r in'his car 1,0 the Mission Hall polling booth. As ho mid she got out of the ear he instructed her that she would get two voting papers, and that she was to strike out the bottom line on each paper. A number of people heard him, and some of tliem remonsilirated with him. JJJ3 Worship said that had the evidence gone in the direction of showing that the defendaiiit. was malting a custom of interfering with voters, he would have been heavily fined, but the evidence showed that lijhe woman was very 'old, and could neither read nor write. Jt was possible in siwh circumstances that the defendant might have known .the voter's desire, Still, anybody with any sense, should know that he had no right to interfere with a voter, or to offer advice, on voting day, even if the other person had been deaf, dumb and Wind. Defendant would he Convicted I'and fined £2, and 31s costs.