1184
THE NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE.
[No. 35

(b) On receipt of any such notice the Registrar of Electors shall remove from the roll the name of the person to whom the notice relates, and shall, opposite his name, write the word “Dead,” and the date of death.

(4) (a) Notice of the intended marriage of any woman registered as an elector, required to be given pursuant to section 43 of the said Act, shall be in the form numbered 5 in the Schedule hereto.

(b) On receipt of any such notice the Registrar of Electors shall forthwith send the elector a notice requesting her to state whether the marriage has been solemnized and (if so) whether she is still residing within the electoral district; and, on receipt of a statement by the elector that the marriage has been solemnized, the Registrar shall remove the former name of the elector from the roll, and, if she is still possessed of the necessary residential qualification, shall insert her married name in its alphabetical order, together with the correct address and description.

REGULATION 3.—VOTING BY ABSENT VOTERS AT GENERAL ELECTIONS.

(1) A registered elector desiring to vote at a general election at a polling-place outside the district for which he is registered must make personal application at such polling-place during the hours of polling, and establish to the satisfaction of the Deputy Returning Officer that he is unable to record his vote as an ordinary elector in the electoral district for which he is registered.

(2) Every such elector shall, on applying to vote, state to the Deputy Returning Officer his full name, his place of residence, and occupation, as appearing on the electoral roll of the district for which he is registered.

(3) The Deputy Returning Officer may, and if so required by a scrutineer shall, before allowing an elector to vote as an absent voter, put to him the questions specified in section 133 of the said Act.

(4) If the Deputy Returning Officer is satisfied that the claimant is entitled to vote as an absent voter he shall require him to make an application in the form numbered 6 in the Schedule hereto.

(5) If the claimant signs by making his mark or with an illiterate signature, or if for any other reason the Deputy Returning Officer thinks fit to do so, he shall accept any evidence of identity that the claimant may tender, and make on the application form a note of such evidence.

(6) On application being so made the Deputy Returning Officer shall fill up a blank ballot-paper with the names of the candidates for the district for which the elector is entitled to vote, and shall enter on the application form and the counterfoil and the top right-hand corner of the back of the ballot-paper the proper consecutive number; he shall then fold over the corner of the ballot-paper so as to conceal the consecutive number, and shall secure the corner by gum or other effective means; on the counterfoil of the ballot-paper he shall also write his initials and the name of the electoral district in respect of which the ballot-paper is given, and shall then, on both the counterfoil and the back of the ballot-paper, place his official mark, and shall give the ballot-paper to the voter. The voter shall mark the ballot-paper in the manner prescribed by section 136 of the said Act, and shall return the same to the Deputy Returning Officer, who shall, in the presence of the voter, enclose it in an envelope marked so as to indicate that it contains a ballot-paper and, having fastened up the envelope, shall enclose it, together with the application for a ballot-paper, in a second envelope addressed to the Returning Officer of the district for which the vote is exercised, and shall forthwith post it to that Returning Officer.

(7) The Returning Officer, on receiving a ballot-paper transmitted to him as aforesaid, shall open the outer envelope only and extract therefrom the application for a ballot-paper, which he shall forthwith refer to the Registrar of Electors, who shall, on receipt of the same, compare the signature of the voter on his application for a ballot-paper with that of the voter on his application for registration as an elector.

(8) If the Registrar of Electors is satisfied as to the identity of the voter, he shall certify to that effect by writing on the application for a ballot-paper, and return such application forthwith to the Returning Officer, who shall allow the vote if it is otherwise in order.

(9) If the Registrar of Electors is not satisfied as to the identity of the voter, he shall certify to that effect, by writing as aforesaid, and shall give his reasons for so doing; or, if the voter’s name is not on the roll, a certificate to that effect shall be given; and the Registrar shall return the application forthwith to the Returning Officer, who shall disallow the vote and set aside, unopened, the envelope containing the ballot-paper, after having written across it the words “Disallowed, identity not certified,” or “Disallowed, name not on roll,” as the case may require.

(10) The envelopes containing the ballot-papers of absent voters shall be placed in a ballot-box specially set aside for the purpose, and shall not be opened until the official count, and then only in the presence of such of the scrutineers as choose to be present. The envelopes marked “Disallowed” shall not be opened at all.

(11) In the case of a vote disallowed for the reason that identity has not been proved the scrutineers shall, if they so desire, be given an opportunity to compare the signatures of the voter as appearing on the application for a ballot-paper and on the application for registration as an elector.

REGULATION 4.—VOTING BY ABSENT VOTERS AT LICENSING POLL.

(1) Every elector voting as an absent voter at a general election shall be given a licensing voting-paper in the form No. 2 in the Schedule to the Licensing Amendment Act, 1918, and in the case of an elector registered in a “No License” electoral district shall, in addition, be given a voting-paper in the form of the Second Schedule to the Licensing Amendment Act, 1910.

(2) The elector shall mark such voting-papers by striking out the proposals for which he does not wish to vote.

(3) The Deputy Returning Officer shall prepare the licensing voting-papers in a manner similar to that provided in clause (6) of Regulation 3 hereof, and shall enclose such voting-papers in the envelope containing the electoral ballot-paper of the elector concerned, and such voting-papers shall be dealt with in like manner to ballot-papers under Regulation 3 hereof, mutatis mutandis.

REGULATION 5.—VOTING BY ABSENT VOTERS AT BY-ELECTIONS.

For the purpose of exercising his vote as an absent voter for a district in which a by-election is being held, the elector shall apply in person during the hours of polling and during the time prescribed by section 139 of the said Act to any Postmaster to have a ballot-paper issued to him, and shall make application in the form numbered 6 in the Schedule hereto, and thereupon the provisions of Regulation 3 hereof relating to voting by absent voters at general elections shall, with the necessary modifications, apply.

REGULATION 6.—VOTING ON DECLARATION.

Declarations under section 141 of the said Act shall be in the form numbered 7 or the form numbered 8 in the Schedule hereto, as the case may require.

REGULATION 7.—POSTAL VOTING.

(1) In this regulation “authorized witness” includes any person who is a permanent officer in the service of the Government, a registered medical practitioner, a registered nurse, a registered midwife, a registered maternity nurse, an officiating minister under the Marriage Act, 1908, a solicitor, a Justice of the Peace, or a person appointed in that behalf either generally or for a particular case or cases by the Returning Officer, and who is not disqualified under the next succeeding clause of this regulation.

(2) No candidate at an election or person employed for hire or reward by a candidate or political party or organization interested in a poll under the Licensing Act, 1908, as a secretary, scrutineer, clerk, messenger, canvasser, or in any other capacity in connection with the election or poll shall witness the signature of any person applying for a postal vote-certificate and a postal ballot-paper, or the signature of any elector voting under these regulations.

(3) For the purpose of section 140 of the said Act postal vote-certificates and postal ballot-papers may be issued by Returning Officers at any time during ordinary office hours after the issue of the writ and before the time prescribed for the close of the poll.

(4) Before the issue of a postal vote-certificate and postal ballot-paper an elector shall make written application in the form numbered 9 in the Schedule hereto, and shall sign the same with his own hand in the presence of an authorized witness, and such application must be delivered or posted to the Returning Officer for the district of which the applicant is registered as an elector or, if the elector has reason to believe that the application may not in the ordinary course of post reach the Returning Officer for the district of which he is registered as an elector so as to enable him to receive a postal vote-certificate and postal ballot-paper from that officer in time to permit of the elector voting at the election, then to some other Returning Officer. If the applicant signs by making his mark or with an illiterate signature, he may on his application, for the purpose of identification, add, following his signature, any three numerals arbitrarily selected which he intends shall be added to his signature on the postal vote-certificate, so as to connect the signature on the application with the signature on the postal vote-certificate to be subsequently signed by him.