MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 201, 3 February 1915, Page 7

MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS.

j QUALIFICATIONS OF ELECTORS. I A good deal of misconception exists j with regard to the qualifications of an I elector for the Election of Mayor, Coun-, cillors, Hospital Board, and Harbors Boards, which will be held on Wednes-I day, the 28th April; and also with «- gard to the roll to be used on that occasion. In view of the many enquiries made daily, we have been asked to explain tlie exact position, which is as follows: Every person of the age of twenty-one years, who has resided for not less than three months within the Borough boundaries and one full years in New Zealand, has a vote for all the above named elections provided he is a British subject by birth, or by naturalisation in New Zealand, and has made application to be placed on the roll. There are thrco other qualifications under which an elector may claim: first, that he is a freeholder of land within the borougli; second, that he is a ratepayer; and third, that he is a tenant of a dwelling at a rental of not less than £lO per annum. In the latter case he must have been a tenant for three months before his application is made. The freeholder and the ratepayer are entered on the roll by the Town Clerk, while all other classes of electors must make application. The wife has a qualification in the right of her husband, and the husband in the right of the wife. These rights are mostly claimed in the cash of ratepayers and freeholders. The application to enrol must give a full description of the elector—his full name, and it must be signed in full and witnessed by either a J.P., postmaster, minister of religion, the town clerk, or an elector whose name is already lawfully on the roll. It must be distinctly understood that registration on the general roll of the electorate for which the member of Parliament is elected docs not give any rights on the municipal roll; th e two are distinct in every particular and have no connection with each other. Quite a number of people think this electoral roll is used for the municipal roll. The procedure adopted in making up tbe municipal roll is that in the year the general elections for mayor and councillors are held the town clerk must make up the main roll before the 15th February. The names appearing in the previous year's roll in respect to ratepayers and freeholders are continued on the new roll unless they have lost their qualification by sale of the land in which they were previously interested. Names of all other classes of electors arc also continued provided they have voted at the last gen-1 era! election of mayor and councillors