ARMY VOTING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 July 1943, Page 2

ARMY VOTING

IN COMING GENERAL ELECTION. SOUTH AFRICAN LEAD FOR NEW ZEALAND. N.Z.E.F. Official News Service. CAIRO. July 8. The South Africans, as the first Dominions service men to vote outside their country, have organised an election scheme in the Middle East which may be used as a pattern for the New Zealanders’ ballot later this year, as the South Africans have had to overcome difficulties most closely resembling our own. Faced with the problem of reaching troops and airmen serving on four continents and sailors on ships between the Red Sea and the English Cannnel, the South Africans have directed from Cairo a system which has given their servicemen every opportunity to share in the selection of the Union's Government. It is estimated that 90 per cent, of South Africans serving in the Middle East and across north Africa and on the Atlantic coast have signed ballot papers. By early this week, almost half of their votes were on their way by air to South Africa A small staff of election officials covered thousands of miles in a matter of weeks, distributing ballot papers, giving advice on the method of voting, and dividing their territory into huge electoral areas, one of which began on the Tripolitanian border in Libya and ended at the Atlantic coast. Along the coast, at every station where South Africans in the Royal Navy and the South African’s little ships might call, arrangements were made for ballot papers to be accepted. Though there were no compulsory parades for voting, every South African was urged indentures to sign the ballot papers. Every man and woman was shown a copy of the manifestoes of the five main parties, including the anti-war Opposition, which were published in the Union’s two official languages. The service ballot began on June 15, three weeks before election day in the Union. Between fighter sweeps and bomber sorties, in tank repair workshops, in secret offices where even, the election officials were taken blindfolded, and in dozens of other stations and outposts, votes were taken and sent back to Cairo, where they went by a special shuttle service to South Africa. The ballot papers were sent in batches, so that if one aircraft was lost no great number of votes would be destroyed. One difference between the South African overseas election and the conditions so far as is known for the New Zealand ballot, is that no South African minors were allowed to vote.