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Following is a question by Hon Emily Lau and a written reply by the Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs, Mr Stephen Lam, in the Legislative Council today (January 9):
Question:
Regarding the 2003 and 2007 District Council (DC) elections, the 2004 Legislative Council (LegCo) general election and the 2007 LegCo by-election for the Hong Kong Island geographical constituency (GC), will the Executive Authorities inform this Council:
(a) in respect of each of the elections, of the number of electors registered in the then relevant final register (FR) of GCs who had changed their principal residential address since the publication of the preceding FR;
(b) in respect of each constituency for each of the elections, of the number of electors transferred to that constituency due to a change of their principal residential address;
(c) in respect of each of the elections, of the respective numbers of electors who had informed the relevant authorities that it was only when they reached the ballot paper issuing desk in the polling station did they find that:
(i) their names were missing from the part of the FR relating to that polling station, and
(ii) the particulars registered in respect of their names in the FR had been crossed out (indicating that the electors concerned had been issued with ballot papers earlier),
with a breakdown of (i) and (ii) by constituency; and
(d) of the causes of the problems mentioned in (c), and how the relevant authorities have addressed such problems?
Reply:
Madam President,
My reply to the various parts of the question is set out below:
(a) & (b) The computerised voter registration system currently used by the Registration and Electoral Office (REO), namely, the New Electoral and Registration System (NEARS), was implemented in 2004. The system does not register information on the FRs of electors before 2004. Hence, we do not have information on the number of electors registered in the 2003 and 2004 FRs who had changed their principal residential address since the publication of the previous FR.
Comparing the 2006 FR and the 2007 FR, a total of 112370 electors changed their principal residential addresses. The numbers of electors transferred to a constituency different from that in the 2006 FR for the 2007 DC Election and for the 2007 LegCo Hong Kong Island GC By-Election broken down by constituencies due to a change of their principal residential address are set out at Annex I and Annex II respectively.
(c) & (d) (i) According to section 86 of the Electoral Affairs Commission (Electoral Procedure) (District Councils) Regulation (Cap. 541F) and section 88 of the Electoral Affairs Commission (Electoral Procedure) (Legislative Council) Regulation (Cap. 541D), the REO must retain in its custody the relevant electoral documents for at least six months from the date of the election to which they relate and must thereafter, unless directed by an order of court in proceedings relation to an election petition or criminal proceedings, destroy them. The relevant electoral documents for the 2003 DC Election and the 2004 LegCo Election have been disposed of according to the law and the information requested in respect of these two elections is therefore not available.
For the 2007 DC Election and the 2007 LegCo By-election, 25553 and 12182 persons respectively had informed the polling staff that it was only when they reached the ballot paper issuing desk in the polling station did they find that their names were missing from the part of the FR relating to that polling station. A breakdown of the figure for the 2007 DC Election by DC constituencies is at Annex III.
The possible causes of the cases mentioned above include:
(a) the person concerned was not a registered elector;
(b) the person concerned went to a wrong polling station (i.e. not the polling station allocated); and
(c) for the 2007 LegCo By-election, the person concerned was a registered elector of a GC other than the Hong Kong Island GC.
Under section 31(1) of the Electoral Affairs Commission (Electoral Procedure) (Legislative Council) Regulation and section 34(1) of the Electoral Affairs Commission (Electoral Procedure) (District Councils) Regulation, the REO is required to send a poll card to each elector at least 10 days before the polling day of every contested election stating the polling station at which the elector must cast his or her vote. To facilitate electors' access to the polling stations, each poll card is sent together with a map showing the location of the polling station concerned. On the polling day, polling staff help electors who go to a wrong polling station look up their allocated polling station and direct them to the polling station concerned for casting votes. Persons who are not registered electors are provided with application forms for voter registration at the polling stations. They are encouraged to register on the spot.
(ii) The REO does not have statistics on the number of electors who had informed the polling staff that it was only when they reached the ballot paper issuing desk in the polling station did they find that the particulars registered in respect of their names in the FR had been crossed out (indicating that the electors concerned had been issued with ballot papers earlier). However, according to section 60 of the Electoral Affairs Commission (Electoral Procedure) (District Councils) Regulation and the Electoral Affairs Commission (Electoral Procedure) (Legislative Council) Regulation, a person (the first-mentioned person) applying for a ballot paper after a person has been issued with a ballot paper on the basis that he or she is that first-mentioned person shall be issued a ballot paper endorsed with the words “重複” and “TENDERED”. For the 2003 DC Election and the 2004 LegCo Election, 51 and 135 tendered ballot papers respectively were issued (see breakdown by constituencies at Annex IV and Annex V).
As regards the 2007 DC Election and the 2007 LegCo By-election, the REO is now compiling the relevant statistics which will be included in the respective reports to be submitted by the Electoral Affairs Commission to the Chief Executive within three months of the date of the elections.
Possible causes for the above situation may include:
(a) the relevant elector has asked for the ballot paper repeatedly; or
(b) the polling staff has crossed out the electors' particulars inaccurately.
To ensure that the person who obtain the ballot paper is the registered elector, the polling staff will ask the elector to show his/her identity document. According to section 53 of the Electoral Affairs Commission (Electoral Procedure) (District Councils) Regulation, unless the polling staff is satisfied that the person is the person registered in the FR, he/she must not give a ballot paper to that person. According to section 56 of the Regulation, before issuing a ballot paper, the name of the elector as stated in the copy or extract of the relevant FR must be called out. Immediately before issuing the ballot paper, the polling staff must place a line in the copy or extract of the FR across the name and identity document number of the elector to denote that the ballot paper the person is entitled to have issued to him or her at that polling station has been so issued. As stated above, according to section 60 of the Regulation, if a person (the first-mentioned person) representing himself or herself to be a particular elector applies for a ballot paper after a person has been issued with a ballot paper on the basis that he or she is that first-mentioned person, the ballot paper to be issued to the first-mentioned person must be endorsed on the front of it with the words “重複” and “TENDERED”. According to section 78 of the Regulation, a ballot paper endorsed with the words “重複” and “TENDERED” is not to be regarded as valid and the vote recorded on the ballot paper is not to be counted.
The above provisions ensure that ballot papers are only issued to the registered electors, that the polling staff accurately records which electors have been issued with ballot papers and prevent any registered elector from being able to vote and have his vote counted more than once in an election. Similar provisions are present in the Electoral Affairs Commission (Electoral Procedure) (Legislative Council) Regulation (Cap. 541D).
Polling staff are well briefed on the appropriate procedures at the training sessions.
Ends/Wednesday, January 9, 2008
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