ELECTION MUDDLE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9116, 16 June 1908, Page 5

ELECTION MUDDLE.

THE TUAPEKA SEAT. CURIOUS CLERICAL ERROR. A curious informality, which may seriously affect the result of the recent Tuapeka by-election, ha 3 been brought to light. It is understood that the names of upwards of 100 electors in tie Mount Ida electorate apneared on the roll- used at the byelection owing to an error on the part of a subordinate officer in the Elector:.l Department. Since Mr Mans-, field took charge of the office he has introduced the card system. It may be explained that from these cards the electoral rolls for each feat ore compiled. Ever since the new boundaries were declared by the representation comnrssioners the staff of, the Electoral Department has been busy compiling ihe i.ew rolls in accordance with the altered boundaries. The cor.tineency of a by-election, however, had to be taken into account. The law provides that the ne:/ boundaries are to come into force only at the time of the general election, and a by-election, therefore, must take place within the old limits. Now in the case of Tuapeka, portion of the southern part of the electorate has been included in Taieri and Bruce, and a slice of Mount Ida added at the other end. The chief electoral, officers staff had already got the cards for Tuapeka together on the lines of the new boundaries when Mr Bennet died; and it became necessary to return to the former receptacle the names of those electors included in Bruce and Taieri (in anticipation of the general election) and to exclude those added from the Mount Jda end, before the roll could be accurately compiled and printed. The woik of transferring the and Taieri people back to their old position as electors for Tuakepa was duly carried out, but by an uniortunate oversight the Mount Ida people, who had changed their addresses were not included, and the result was that the names of a lavere number of people, roughly speaking, about one hundred, appeared on the roll who had no right whatever to rank as electors of Tuapeka. Inteniewed by a "Post" reporter, the chief electoral officer, Mr F. W. Mansfield, said the mistake was incidental to the alteration of the electoral boundaries and to the initiation of a new system. He said he could not conceive that any of the people, whose were wrongly placed on the roll, had voted, inasmuch as there was no polling booth in that particular district, but this point cannot be settled until the marked rolls arrive at Wellington to-day. The mistake was discovered before the election took plac«, but it was then too late to do anything to rectify it. It is the first time that such a case has arisen in New Zealand. Owing to the narrow majority Hjcured by Dr. Chappie (30 votes) over Mr Horn, the occurrence may lead to an attempt to invalidate the election. Mr Mansfield points out that under section 35 of the act, "no person . . . shall be entitled to vote at an election . . . unless he hss been actually and bona iide resident therein for'not less than six days, either separately or continu-

cutly." The legal position arising out of the. error is an interesting one. Section 57 of the Act of 1905 states that: "Except as provided in sections 45 and 51 . . . it shall not be lawful for any registrar . . . to enter on or to remove from the roll ot any electoral district the name of any person after the day of the issue of the writ for the election .... until the completion of the said election." It seems clear from this that the roll is taken to be final, but it is equally clear that the names of the one hundred people in question had no right to be on the roll.