Officials cleared of prompting patients

An investigation has cleared electoral officials of an allegation that one had prompted a private hospital patient to vote Labour.

Chief Electoral Officer David Henry said yesterday that his electoral law manager found the officials concerned had acted with "no corrupt intention".

But he warned that the interests of people in hospitals and resthomes must be guarded during the gathering of their votes.

The Weekend Herald reported the nurse's complaint that an official collecting special votes had prompted two mentally impaired elderly people at a Mangere nursing home to tick "Labour" on their ballot papers.

In a third case she was unable to see whether the official had ticked Labour for a woman who kept saying, "I don't know," one of only two English phrases the patient knew.

The nurse said that in one of the cases, the official put his hand on a Tongan woman's head and nodded in an apparent bid to sanction a Labour vote.

Mr Henry said that in the complaint filed with his office, concerning only one patient, the nurse had denied that this had occurred.

The newspaper maintained that it had accurately reported the nurse's comments.

Mr Henry said the investigation concluded the complaint was genuine and motivated by a concern that patients at the hospital be given an opportunity to vote freely.

Officials must ascertain if people in hospitals and rest-homes wished to vote and whether they needed any help to do so.

"This is a sensitive area and I have reminded all returning officers of the need to work closely with hospital managers and nurses to ensure good lines of communications are maintained and the interests of patients are protected."

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