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No other person except the Presiding Officer, the necessary Poll Clerk, and not exceeding one agent at each Polling Booth for each Candidate, to be appointed in writing by the Candidate, together with a sufficient number of constables to keep order, shall remain in any Polling Booth during the polling, and no person whatever except the Presiding Officer, and the Poll Clerk to whom any vote shall be tendered, shall speak to any elector after he shall have entered the Polling Booth and before he shall have delivered his Voting Paper as hereinafter provided.

The number of votes which may be given for any Candidate at any such Polling Booth shall not be published or made known until after the close of the Poll.

The voting at each polling place shall be conducted in manner following:—

Every person entitled to vote at the election may vote for any number of candidates, not exceeding the number of the members of the School Committee then to be chosen, by delivering to the Presiding Officer appointed for that purpose a Voting Paper in the form in the Schedule, or to the like effect, containing the name of the persons for whom he votes; such paper being previously signed with the name of the person voting; and the Poll Clerk shall thereupon openly record such vote in a Poll Book to be kept for that purpose; provided always that if any voter cannot write he shall affix his mark at the foot of the voting paper in the presence of a witness, who shall attest and write the name of the voter against the same.

The Officer presiding at any Polling Booth shall put to every person tendering his vote the following questions:—

1. What is your Christian Name and Surname?

2. Are you rated in any Road District or Municipality comprised within the boundaries of the Educational District of Lyttelton for any dwelling house, warehouse, shop, offices, or other building, which you either occupy, use, or reside in?

3. What is the property in respect of which you are rated, and the name and situation thereof?

4. Have you already voted at this present election?

And no other question shall be put to any person tendering his vote, and no person who shall refuse to answer any such question, or whose answers to the same shall not show his right to give such vote, shall be permitted to vote.

The Poll shall commence at Nine o’clock in the forenoon, and close at Four o’clock in the afternoon of the day appointed.

Immediately on the close of the Poll the Officer appointed for the purpose shall examine the Poll Book, and if necessary compare the entries therein with the Voting Papers so delivered as aforesaid, for the purpose of ascertaining the number of votes given for each Candidate; and the said Officer shall as soon as conveniently may be, on or after the day of the Poll, give public notice of the number of votes given to each Candidate, and shall declare the Candidates, not exceeding the number of Members to be elected, who have received at all the Polling Booths taken together the greatest number of votes, to have been duly elected as Members of the School Committee, and shall also forward a return of the same to the Chairman of the Board of Education; and if two or more Candidates shall have received an equal number of votes, the said Officer shall in each case have the casting vote.

WALTER KENNAWAY,
Provincial Secretary.

Provincial Secretary’s Office,
Christchurch, 3rd April, 1872.

Printed under the authority of the Provincial Government of the Province of Canterbury, at the Lyttelton Times Office, Gloucester Street, by WILLIAM REEVE, Official Printer for the time being to the said Government.