COUNTY ELECTIONS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 May 1938, Page 3

COUNTY ELECTIONS

NON-PAYMENT OF RATES DEFAULTERS NOT ALLOWED TO VOTE (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, May 1. Thousands of property-owners in counties throughout New Zealand will be barred from voting at the county council elections on May 11, according to a statement yesterday by the returning officer in the Heathcote county. Mr J. P. E. Veale. Mr Veale said that any person whose rates, 10 days before the poll, had been unpaid for not less than six months, was not entitled to vote at a county election. This bar had been lifted by legislation in 1936, but this permissive legislation had since been repealed. Mr Veale quoted as authority for his statement section 57, of the Counties’ Act, 1920, which reads as follows: — “(1) It shall be the duty of the (county) clerk to send to the returning officer, not later than 10 days before the date fixed for the holding of any election or the taking of any poll, a list of all ratepayers, whose rates or any part thereof are then unpaid and have remained unpaid for a period of not less than six months. “(2) Notwithstanding anything in the foregoing provisions of this Act or in any other Act, no person whose name appears on the list furnished under the last proceeding sub-section for the purposes of any election or poll shall be entitled to vote at that election or poll.” In 1936, said Mr Veale, there had been passed the Local Elections and Polls (Temporary) Amendment Act, which said that while the Act remained in force no person was to be disqualified from voting at any election or poll because he had not paid any rate due by him at any time after March 31, 1934. This amending Act added that the name of any person who, but for this dispensation, would be barred from voting at any election or poll, was not to be entered on any list prepared in accordance with section 57 of the Counties Act. “However, the third section of the Local Elections and Polls (Temporary) A.mendment Act,” Said Mr Veale, “states that the Act is to remain in force until December 31, 1937, and shall then be deemed to be repealed. I have sought legal advice on this matter, and I am told that section 57 of the Counties Act is now operative, and must be observed by returning officers. This means that any county ratepayer whose rates, or any part of them, have been unpaid for six months or more, will not be allowed to vote at the county elections on May 11.”