Toby the dog has company on roll

Two more irregularities have come to light since a Wanaka man admitted he enrolled his dog to vote.

A Chinese student who was not a permanent resident is on the Mt Roskill electoral roll and received an "EasyVote" card in the post.

And a man turned up at a South Auckland polling booth with two EasyVote cards under two different names.

Beverly McMahan worked issuing voting papers at the polling station and said she alerted a manager to the discrepancy.

Mt Roskill man Alan Matteucci threw away the first election pack for flatmate Wen Jun Fan, who returned to her native China this year.

He is adamant she did not have permanent residency and although she wanted to stay here, could not find a suitable job.

When the second lot of mail from the Electoral Enrolment Centre arrived, he sent it back but finally an EasyVote card came in the mail.

"You can bet your bottom dollar it's not the only case," he said.

Enrolment officials are furious that Peter Rhodes successfully enrolled his 4-year-old jack russell terrier and say Mr Rhodes will be prosecuted.

Mr Rhodes said he put a "squiggle" on the enrolment application for dog Toby and signed the form with a paw print. However, a faxed copy of the form appears to have no paw print but does have a signature of "Toby R Rhodes".

Electoral Enrolment Centre national manager Murray Wicks called the action "stupid" and said the matter had been passed to Cromwell police.

He opposed any move to introduce stricter rules for voting.

"We have a free and open democracy and I don't believe there's any mischief," he said.

He would not give details of exactly what checks are done for enrolment because "once it gets out there, there'll be all sorts of people doing all sorts of things".

All new enrolments, or forms returned because people's details such as addresses have changed, were checked through the office's computer, he said.

The Labour Department supplied details for non-residents and overstayers who should not be on the roll.

The department would not say whether or not Ms Fan was a permanent resident for privacy reasons.

Head of Massey University's school of history, philosophy and politics, Dr James Watson, said anyone could fill out a form with a name and address.

"Even if the address doesn't exist, how are they ever going to check that?" he said.

But it was unlikely the system was being "rorted" to any large degree.

"You'd have to have a very well organised cheating set-up to make a difference," he said.

This year the Electoral Enrolment Centre announced a record 95.22 per cent of eligible voters enrolled for the 2005 election, an increase of 177,366 from last time.