The Minister for Home Affairs asks to be advised on the following memorandum by the Chief Electoral Officer:

On the 30th July last a writ was issued for the election of six Senators for the State of South Australia to serve in the Senate of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia.

Twelve nominations were received and the names of the candidates were duly declared by the Commonwealth Electoral Officer for the State on the 7th day of August 1914.

On the 13th day of August one of the candidates-Gregor McGregor-died.

Between the date of the issue of the writ and the date of the decease of Mr McGregor, absent voting before Commonwealth Electoral Registrars by electors who had reason to believe that on polling day they would not be within any Electoral Division of the Commonwealth, had proceeded throughout the Commonwealth.

If at the scrutiny it is found that any electors have voted for Gregor McGregor, the question will arise as to whether the votes for other candidates on the ballot-papers containing a vote for Gregor McGregor shall be counted to those candidates.

An elector voting as an absent voter before a Registrar marks his vote by writing on the ballot-paper the names of the candidates for whom he votes. Section 139 of the Electoral Act provides as follows:

139-

1. An elector who has reason to believe that he will not on polling day be within any Commonwealth Electoral Division may, subject to the regulations, be permitted to vote at any time after the issue of the writ and before polling day, if he attends before any prescribed Commonwealth Electoral Registrar and makes a declaration in accordance with the prescribed form.
2. The ballot-paper to be used shall be in accordance with the form prescribed by the regulations, but it shall not be necessary that the candidates' names be printed thereon, or that all the candidates' names appear thereon.
3. The vote of the elector shall be marked on the ballot-paper in the presence of the Registrar, but so that the Registrar cannot see the vote, unless otherwise prescribed in the case of any elector who is so physically incapacitated or illiterate that he is unable to vote without assistance.
4. The vote having been marked on the ballot-paper, the ballot-paper shall be folded by the elector so as to conceal the vote and shall be handed to the Registrar, who shall thereupon in the presence of the elector without unfolding it place it in an envelope, which he shall securely fasten and forthwith forward to the Returning Officer for the Division for which the elector claims to be enrolled.
5. A ballot-paper under this section, having a vote marked thereon, shall not be informal by reason that the surname only of a candidate appears thereon, or by reason of any mistake or error in spelling, if the elector's intention is clear.
6. The regulations may prescribe any matters (not inconsistent with this Act) necessary or convenient to be prescribed for carrying this section into effect, and in particular may prescribe the grounds on which ballot-papers under this section are to be rejected as informal.

A vote under section 139 may therefore be given immediately after the writ, and before nomination day. The elector may vote for one or more persons who, as it turns out, never become candidates, or who, having been nominated, withdraw before the hour of nomination. Or a candidate for whom he votes may die before polling day.

Section 158 of the Act provides that:

A ballot-paper shall (except as otherwise provided by regulations under section one hundred and thirty-nine or the regulations relating to absent voting) be informal if . . . (b) it has no vote marked on it or has votes marked on it for a greater or lesser number of candidates than the number required to be elected.

Section 160(2) of the Act provides that all ballot-papers used for voting in pursuance of section 139 or in pursuance of the regulations relating to absent voting shall be dealt with as prescribed by the regulations.

The regulations for scrutiny deal with both kinds of absent voters' ballot-papers (those cast prior to polling day before an Electoral Registrar, and those cast at a polling booth) in the same way. The envelopes containing them are opened at the close of the poll, and it is provided (regulation 22(17)(vi), Statutory Rules 1912, No. 161) that an absent voter's ballot-paper shall be informal if (inter alia) it has, in an electipn for the Senate, votes marked on it for a lesser number of candidates than those required to be elected.

In my opinion, the intention of the Act and Regulations is that votes cast before a Registrar should, as regards this ground of informality, be treated on exactly the same footing as votes cast on polling day. Electors are permitted, if they think they will be out of the Commonwealth on polling day, to cast their votes beforehand, but they have to take the risk of the persons for whom they vote not becoming candidates, or withdrawing before the hour of nomination, or dying before polling day. If at the scrutiny it appears that one of the persons for whom an elector has voted is not, in the events that have happened, a candidate, and that therefore he has voted for a lesser number of candidates than the number required to be elected, his ballot-paper must be rejected as informal.

[Vol. 13, p. 30]